Its surprisingly easy!
As long as you get started early, that is. When you bring home your new baby African Tiger Fish (ATF), you have to start the breaking process immediately.
In order to use my method of breaking your new tigers, you need to take four simple steps:
1- Use teacher fish.
Teacher fish are a group of fishes that will teach your new tiger how to eat pellets. For a baby ATF, I strongly favor tinfoil barbs. Tinfoils are ideal teacher fish because they are readily available at your local fish store, they're cheap, they will feed off of the surface right out of the bag with great vigor, and they will school readily with your new baby tiger fish. For some reason, I've not had any luck with bala sharks as teacher fish with my young tigers, the tigers seem to go out of their way to kill them. I prefer to use teachers that are about half the size of my tigers. For a typical 3" new baby tiger, I use tinfoils one to one and one half inches in length.
2- Use floating pellets.
I consider floating pellets to be important in the breaking of your new ATF. The reason for this is simple. When your teacher fish eat from the surface, they will make a far greater commotion. The commotion they make with their feeding activity is what will draw the attention of the ATF! With out the activity and splashing of the teacher fish, it will take a lot longer for the ATF to notice the new food source, and it is possible that the ATF will simply turn to your teacher fish as their new food source! I strongly favor Hikari Jumbo Carnisticks for breaking my tigers. This is because Jumbo Carnisticks can be easily broken into pieces that are ideally suited for a baby tiger to swallow. An ideal size is to break the sticks into thirds. Second, and more importantly, the Jumbo Carnisticks have a spongy texture that absorbs water to take on a goldfish-like consistency. This is important for breaking your new tigers, as they get the impression they're biting a familiar piece of food. I've found them much more willing to eat a soft textured pellet than they are to eat something that feels to them like biting a stone!
3- Starve, starve, starve!
When you decide that you're going to change your new tiger's diet, you have to stay the course! I know from experience how hard it can be to not give your new $100 or more ATF no feedes, but its essential that you don't! The reason why is simple. An ATF is a specialized piscivore. This means that they have evolved to eat fish, and without a great deal of outside pressure, they will not consider anything else as a new portion of their diet. So, if they consistently get to the border of starvation and you offer guppies, then they will learn that holding out longer just results in guppies coming eventually. It's incredibly counter productive!
4- Start as soon as he's in your tank.
It is well documented both on this site and others that a change of environment can be the impetus necessary for causing a stubborn fish to change its diet. As such, as soon as you introduce your new tiger to your tank, he should never get feeder fish again! You can't allow the fish to take up his or her old habits.
Now, when you combine these four measures you will find it quite easy to get your new ATF eating pellets. The first day or two after starting, the barbs will be tearing up your pellets and its unlikely that the ATF will notice the behavior. Before too long, you'll notice the ATF actively watching the barbs eating. Normally on the third day, you'll see your ATF trying to steal pellets from the barbs and eating pieces that they drop. Normally, by the fifth day, the ATF should be making tentative trips to the surface to feed. Please understand, the timeframes I have listed here are assuming a typical pre-shipment starvation period. If you buy a well fed fish from your local fish store, it may take a bit longer for the ATF to start displaying the signs I have written about.
"But I have a larger ATF that I just bought / haven't tried to break before"
Well, the same methods will work, they will just take much, much longer. An 8-10 inch ATF, if it's an especially stubborn individual, will be able to go about a month before it reaches a point of hunger that it will be willing to change its diet. Even larger specimens will be able to go even longer! These methods will, however, still work. You just need to buy some bigger teacher fish and wait a bit longer. If you're trying to break a larger tiger, you have to be prepared to lose some of his tankmates. A large ATF has the weapons and often the inclination to take pieces out of his tank mates if he's hungry enough. I learned these lessons the hard way. I fed my Goliath live for months. When I decided to try to break him, he killed everything else that I had in the tank before I was able to get him eating pellets. After that very expensive lesson, I now break all of my new tigers immediately. I consider the purchase of three tinfoil barbs to be part of my purchase of new African tiger fish.
Here's video that shows my baby H. tanzaniae taking pellets from the surface.
[video=youtube_share;TXfQTwCBiZM]http://youtu.be/TXfQTwCBiZM[/video]
As long as you get started early, that is. When you bring home your new baby African Tiger Fish (ATF), you have to start the breaking process immediately.
In order to use my method of breaking your new tigers, you need to take four simple steps:
1- Use teacher fish.
Teacher fish are a group of fishes that will teach your new tiger how to eat pellets. For a baby ATF, I strongly favor tinfoil barbs. Tinfoils are ideal teacher fish because they are readily available at your local fish store, they're cheap, they will feed off of the surface right out of the bag with great vigor, and they will school readily with your new baby tiger fish. For some reason, I've not had any luck with bala sharks as teacher fish with my young tigers, the tigers seem to go out of their way to kill them. I prefer to use teachers that are about half the size of my tigers. For a typical 3" new baby tiger, I use tinfoils one to one and one half inches in length.
2- Use floating pellets.
I consider floating pellets to be important in the breaking of your new ATF. The reason for this is simple. When your teacher fish eat from the surface, they will make a far greater commotion. The commotion they make with their feeding activity is what will draw the attention of the ATF! With out the activity and splashing of the teacher fish, it will take a lot longer for the ATF to notice the new food source, and it is possible that the ATF will simply turn to your teacher fish as their new food source! I strongly favor Hikari Jumbo Carnisticks for breaking my tigers. This is because Jumbo Carnisticks can be easily broken into pieces that are ideally suited for a baby tiger to swallow. An ideal size is to break the sticks into thirds. Second, and more importantly, the Jumbo Carnisticks have a spongy texture that absorbs water to take on a goldfish-like consistency. This is important for breaking your new tigers, as they get the impression they're biting a familiar piece of food. I've found them much more willing to eat a soft textured pellet than they are to eat something that feels to them like biting a stone!
3- Starve, starve, starve!
When you decide that you're going to change your new tiger's diet, you have to stay the course! I know from experience how hard it can be to not give your new $100 or more ATF no feedes, but its essential that you don't! The reason why is simple. An ATF is a specialized piscivore. This means that they have evolved to eat fish, and without a great deal of outside pressure, they will not consider anything else as a new portion of their diet. So, if they consistently get to the border of starvation and you offer guppies, then they will learn that holding out longer just results in guppies coming eventually. It's incredibly counter productive!
4- Start as soon as he's in your tank.
It is well documented both on this site and others that a change of environment can be the impetus necessary for causing a stubborn fish to change its diet. As such, as soon as you introduce your new tiger to your tank, he should never get feeder fish again! You can't allow the fish to take up his or her old habits.
Now, when you combine these four measures you will find it quite easy to get your new ATF eating pellets. The first day or two after starting, the barbs will be tearing up your pellets and its unlikely that the ATF will notice the behavior. Before too long, you'll notice the ATF actively watching the barbs eating. Normally on the third day, you'll see your ATF trying to steal pellets from the barbs and eating pieces that they drop. Normally, by the fifth day, the ATF should be making tentative trips to the surface to feed. Please understand, the timeframes I have listed here are assuming a typical pre-shipment starvation period. If you buy a well fed fish from your local fish store, it may take a bit longer for the ATF to start displaying the signs I have written about.
"But I have a larger ATF that I just bought / haven't tried to break before"
Well, the same methods will work, they will just take much, much longer. An 8-10 inch ATF, if it's an especially stubborn individual, will be able to go about a month before it reaches a point of hunger that it will be willing to change its diet. Even larger specimens will be able to go even longer! These methods will, however, still work. You just need to buy some bigger teacher fish and wait a bit longer. If you're trying to break a larger tiger, you have to be prepared to lose some of his tankmates. A large ATF has the weapons and often the inclination to take pieces out of his tank mates if he's hungry enough. I learned these lessons the hard way. I fed my Goliath live for months. When I decided to try to break him, he killed everything else that I had in the tank before I was able to get him eating pellets. After that very expensive lesson, I now break all of my new tigers immediately. I consider the purchase of three tinfoil barbs to be part of my purchase of new African tiger fish.
Here's video that shows my baby H. tanzaniae taking pellets from the surface.
[video=youtube_share;TXfQTwCBiZM]http://youtu.be/TXfQTwCBiZM[/video]
