force feeding your fish

[bluedempsey]

thanks for the input all.

what would you think the downside of a force feed be? added stress perhaps?

stress, death

 

[peanut]

no never they will feed eventualy they wont starve

 

[MikeC]

Force feeding is a bad idea and could only make a bad situation worse.

 

[contender]

they've stared eating, but man it's like theyre picky?
different characteristic from other channa species.

anyone kept channa bleheri picky wwith food?

 

[clare]

Some fish can starve to death no matter what.I had an allenbatrachus grunniens that refused all food even if placed gently in his mouth.Right to the end he struck at food but would spit it out.On the other hand I have a longibarbis catfish that went on hunger strike for over 6 months before eating again and I have a palembang puffer that has only just started eating sporadically after 5 months.Feedback from other snakehead keepers is that they can often fast for 3 weeks if upset by anything like moving tanks but dont know specifically about bleheri.

 

[redtailfool]

Ive force fed a dog .. with a gerber like dairy formula but never a fish.
A healthy fish will not starve itself to death.

 

[fishnthings]

i had to force feed a rtc i just recieved, we was about dead, ribs showing and was swimming upside down half the time, not even enough power to eat... he got the food down and you can see that its in his stomach now, hopefully he will pull through and be able to eat on his own soon... this is the only thing i could do, he was almost dead

 

[Prowler]

So force feeding is actually sticking the food directly in the fishes mouth? Thats insane.

 

[fishnthings]

well thats what i did, he needed the help of the current from the powerhead to get the food down but what else could i do, i had no other option... looks like hes doing better already though

 

[black1031]

Unfortunately I had to do this with a red bay snook. He just would not eat after a week i got a tukey baster and forced brine shrimp down his throat he started eating. But I think something else was wrong also. I had a pair and both had really bad HITH when I acquired them and were very very thin the female would eat. Eventually they both ended up dead. I think this could be where my worm problem started by cross contaminating tanks.

I also had to force feed wild caught monitor lizards wich is a major pain due to their teeth.