Getting Smallmouth off Live food
- Thread starter jandb
- Start date
When you decide to try the pellets, don't feed them for two to three days and then soak some floating pellets (hikari cichlid pellets are good) in some seachem garlic guard, it enhances their appetite. They should at least check them out and realize that they are edible. They take some time to get greedy about it but eventually they will attack the pellets like they would live food. Once you decide to take them off of live food, I would cut them off completely unless you notice that they stop eating all together for more than a few days.
All great suggestions to try. I got my bass off live by mixing pellets in with bloodworms. Mistakes made and they ate pellets and I began using less and less worms with more and more pellets. Monkey see monkey do works well. Sunfish are easily trained on pellets and most bass do not like to see other fish eating what could have been theirs. The more bold they get and less shy of you, the greedier they will get for food
Instead of using garlic, try thawing bloodworms or shrimp pieces in water and soaking the pellets in that. Get the smell of the food they like in the pellets. Most fish take time to realize hard pellets are edible, and you don't want their first bite to be hard as a rock.
Instead of using garlic, try thawing bloodworms or shrimp pieces in water and soaking the pellets in that. Get the smell of the food they like in the pellets. Most fish take time to realize hard pellets are edible, and you don't want their first bite to be hard as a rock.
I soaked some freeze dried krill, market shrimp and hikari pellets in water with some garlic to soften them up. They showed interest and one mouthed the krill and ate a small pieces of shrimp but still not a ton of success. It's definitely better than before though. I picked up a beef heart I may try tonight. I have about a half dozen rosy reds I need to get rid of so I may feed them those this weekend and then feed them the mixture in garlic paste til they take it. I'll keep you updated.
I do not know If this is true, but I've read that It is not recommended to feed them live food since they can easily revert back to only live quicker than going to non-live. I would get rid of the rosy red fathead minnows by giving them away or even keeping them in a separate tank
(I have a 20 gallon with about 11 fathead minnows and they are fun to watch, especially when feeding since I put 1 cube of bloodworms in and they tear it apart. They school and will breed easily).
I do not know how your bass will react to the return of the live food, so they might revert back, or stay with both. If there are any other fish in there they might learn that the pellets are food. I think that is why mine is eating the food sticks that I just put in there is because my bluegills would eat the food sticks right away. I hope this helps.
(I have a 20 gallon with about 11 fathead minnows and they are fun to watch, especially when feeding since I put 1 cube of bloodworms in and they tear it apart. They school and will breed easily).
I do not know how your bass will react to the return of the live food, so they might revert back, or stay with both. If there are any other fish in there they might learn that the pellets are food. I think that is why mine is eating the food sticks that I just put in there is because my bluegills would eat the food sticks right away. I hope this helps.
Little update. Been soaking shrimp, hikari pellets and krill in garlic with water. First they mouthed it now they readily accept the shrimp and mouth the others. Figure within a week I'll have them on pellets.
Give them competition for the food.
I had all three of mine take pellets from day one after quarantine. A couple of hungry Warmouths, half a dozen Missouri Longear Sunnies, an Ogun Koi & Bowfin (All juveniles) as tankmates. They have no chance being finicky.
Mine (also from Johna's) act similar to the wild small mouths that I have dealt with fishing. While only slightly smaller in body size than it's cousin the LMB, it is many times (if not an order of magnitude) more aggressive of feeders than LMB's.
Any fisherman will tell you, with a lunker LMB, you need to cast your bait/ lure to it and basically put it in that monster mouth. They are LAZY!! Bowfins are also "ambush" predators and not aggressive hunters. Smallmouths are far more like Pickerel hunting and eating. They will swim great lengths in pursuit of food. The Smallmouth is not lightning like the pickerel and therefore have a lower successful strike ratio than pikes and pickerels.
My three SMB saw the pan fish attacking the pellets and immediately followed suite. They have never refused ANY type of food placed in the aquarium (Cut Tilapia fillet is a staple), nor have the spit out any food. Never have fed live to that tank!
They were the first to hit the food on day two, and have NEVER failed to beat the rest of the fish to first bites every since.
I had all three of mine take pellets from day one after quarantine. A couple of hungry Warmouths, half a dozen Missouri Longear Sunnies, an Ogun Koi & Bowfin (All juveniles) as tankmates. They have no chance being finicky.
Mine (also from Johna's) act similar to the wild small mouths that I have dealt with fishing. While only slightly smaller in body size than it's cousin the LMB, it is many times (if not an order of magnitude) more aggressive of feeders than LMB's.
Any fisherman will tell you, with a lunker LMB, you need to cast your bait/ lure to it and basically put it in that monster mouth. They are LAZY!! Bowfins are also "ambush" predators and not aggressive hunters. Smallmouths are far more like Pickerel hunting and eating. They will swim great lengths in pursuit of food. The Smallmouth is not lightning like the pickerel and therefore have a lower successful strike ratio than pikes and pickerels.
My three SMB saw the pan fish attacking the pellets and immediately followed suite. They have never refused ANY type of food placed in the aquarium (Cut Tilapia fillet is a staple), nor have the spit out any food. Never have fed live to that tank!
They were the first to hit the food on day two, and have NEVER failed to beat the rest of the fish to first bites every since.
Here's an update. All of them but one are aggressively chowing down on water soaked Hikari floating pellets. They would fight over them now.
