What to feed a baby dat?

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Tahn

Tahn

Jack Dempsey
MFK Member
Dec 5, 2016
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Central NJ
He's about 1.5 inches, he's a very active swimmer but I haven't seen him eat yet. I dropped some mini cichlid pellets, and he went to go check them out but isn't eating them.

Will he eventually take the pellets?

He's an AT Datnoid.
 
i feed my IT dat blood worms when they were about 1-1.5 inch, now at about 2.5-3 inch they are having live baby frogs for food

never say never but it is very hard to get dat on pellets

are you housing the Dat in a 29 gallon? :D
 
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Galantspeedz said:
i feed my IT dat blood worms when they were about 1-1.5 inch, now at about 2.5-3 inch they are having live baby frogs for food

never say never but it is very hard to get dat on pellets

are you housing the Dat in a 29 gallon? :D
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Yup, he's alone in a 29 gallon, blacked out the tank with paint, he looks great in it. I actually plan on keeping him in there for the foreseeable future, I heard I'll be lucky to get a silver dat to 10 inches and it takes many years.

Just put in a cube of frozen bloodworms and he is going nuts over them! :)

Can he overeat? I feel like a whole cube to himself might be too much, maybe I should scoop some out and save for later?
 
Tahn said:
Yup, he's alone in a 29 gallon, blacked out the tank with paint, he looks great in it. I actually plan on keeping him in there for the foreseeable future, I heard I'll be lucky to get a silver dat to 10 inches and it takes many years.

Just put in a cube of frozen bloodworms and he is going nuts over them! :)

Can he overeat? I feel like a whole cube to himself might be too much, maybe I should scoop some out and save for later?
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i have mine for about 3-4 months and they have grown about an inch only... i think 1 cube is fine... is the stomach bulging? My dats are eating about 2 frogs each about half their size till stomach bulging so i think your 1 cube should be fine...
 
Galantspeedz said:
i have mine for about 3-4 months and they have grown about an inch only... i think 1 cube is fine... is the stomach bulging? My dats are eating about 2 frogs each about half their size till stomach bulging so i think your 1 cube should be fine...
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I removed about half the cube and his stomach is bulging already. Are frogs good food for dats? Where do you get em?
 
Tahn said:
I removed about half the cube and his stomach is bulging already. Are frogs good food for dats? Where do you get em?
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if it is bulging then i think it's full, save it for next session then

i not sure are they good food but since i always buy for my arowana so i thought i might as well feed my flowerhorn and dat with it... and they love it so much that the dat refuses to eat frozen shrimp now.. lol

i get from my lfs but i am in asia. Frog are supposed to have a lot of protein and allows the fish to bulk up / build mass...
 
With the exception of my smallest all of my dats are eating pellets and you can eventually get your silver to eat them as well.When you are ready,stop feeding the bloodworm and try dropping in some sinking pellets.They are best for the fastest growth.
 
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my silver is the only of my dats to eats pellets. It eats broken up carnivore. I would follow K krichardson advice.
 
Hello, again. The important thing is that your AT is eating so you're already on the right track. I wanted to post here because I very recently got a NTT of similar size onto Hikari Massivore within about two weeks and it may help you convert yours onto pellets as well.

I started using frozen Hikari Mysis Shrimp to coax mine out to eat and after seeing tank mates eat them for a few days it started to follow suit but wasn't getting enough from the small mysis alone. Everyone else in the tank takes Massivore so I gradually stopped feeding mysis over a few more days and fed the Massivore at the same time in smaller broken up pieces he could swallow and after close to a week without mysis he cracked and took a small piece of pellet mistakenly and spit it out. The next time I tried he swallowed it instantly. After a few days of eating maybe 1/3 of a Massivore pellet I tried feeding him more and low and behold he kept taking it and in approx 2 weeks time he went from seeing his bone structure to being a full figured healthy looking nonstunted NTT and is also maybe the more aggressive eater in my tank now.

Consider doing a gradual drop off of the frozen so when food is available in the fishes mind food is scarce and must be eaten while it's there. After a couple of days without feeding pellets, especially quality ones with a decent scent will be a much more appealing option than before.
 
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