Can a Dat grow well on a diet of 100% worms?

asm129

Gambusia
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Dec 28, 2009
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I have a NGT that's really stubborn. I bought him 3 months ago and I tried to starve him onto pellets. I starved him for about 3 weeks but he never once made a move to get the pellets. Then I switched to shrimp and tried that for 2 weeks, but he wouldn't eat that either.

After that, he was looking really skinny. I started giving him red wiggler worms and he ate those. He also started eating bloodworms. I've tried mixing bloodworms with pellets and shrimp to get him to eat it, but he just won't do it.

I really like this NGT, but pellet training is a real pain. I can't even get him to eat shrimp. Would he be ok and grow normally if I kept feeding him nothing but red wigglers and bloodworms? He looks healthy and he's always stable. I just think maybe he's not going to grow to full potential by eating worms only.
 

krichardson

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Jun 19, 2006
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Are the red wigglers some type of earthworm?...Not sure if the dat is fed them exclusively though I've heard that they are nutritious....probably more so than raw shrimp which most dats seem to love.
 

asm129

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Dec 28, 2009
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Yep, they're earthworms used for composting. I bought 500 of them and I've been feeding them scraps of lettuce. They're a little smaller and thinner than regular earthworms, but they're really easy to keep alive. I give my NGT about 10 of these guys each feeding.

 

SickSauce

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Oct 24, 2011
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I got mines a dry krill. Do you have any dither fish with it? They help new fish get on to pellet

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I337 using MonsterAquariaNetwork App
 

robroy

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Feb 19, 2006
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I was in the same boat with my NGT. The shop only fed it earthworms and it would only eat these. Over several months I've now got it on Massivore pellets but it took some months.

I marinated prawn in chopped up earthworms for several weeks, then once it was on prawn kept it on this a short while and began to put pellets inside the prawn. Eventually, after several months of starting the process, he takes 100% pellets.

Many a time I felt like quitting but we got there. What I didn't do was starve it. I've a lost an NGT in the past due to this and won't ever do it again. Longest it went without food was a month and then it got a feed of worms or prawn. Never let it get too thin.

It will work my friend, it will, but you must very very patient
 

robroy

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I'd throw some marinated prawn (marinate chopped up prawn in with chopped up worms, putting a little less quantity of worm to prawn each week) prawn and start it all now. Leave it to marinate a few hours before feeding
Let us all know how you do
 

asm129

Gambusia
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Dec 28, 2009
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I'll do that, thanks Rob. A friend told me to soak new foods in garlic juice (I just ordered one called Garlic Guard by Seachem) and hopefully that will get him to bite on the shrimp. I'm going to mix up the worms, shrimp and garlic juice and see how it goes. Thanks all for the advice.
 

robroy

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Feb 19, 2006
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Once it took prawn I used to cut the prawn in half and stuffed it with hikari food stick initially (as they fit really well inside a prawn), then moved on to broken up to whole Massivore inside the prawn. I then got it feeding well on stuffed prawn and then starved it for about a week and it then took Massivore straight away.
I only feed Massivore now with occasional treat of earthworms. I found you had to be very methodical in the whole process-it's a real challenge.
 

JayC74

Piranha
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Apr 9, 2012
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I don't believe a dat can reach his full potential on earthworms alone. My dats that exclusively ate these till bellies were bulging with each meal eventually stopped eating them with the same vigor. While they ate them gd and grew pretty well, each time they would get sick of them and crave a different staple within a matter of time. Roughly 6months to a year is about the time the earthworm gorging would last with an individual dat ime before he slowed down on the worms. None of them were ngt's though, so maybe they will crave them for life & grow to potential. Keep feeding them till he slows down on them, I would say
 
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