breaking Red Tail Barracudas off live. How long?!?!

[johnnytaboo]

I assume it can be done, I'm just at that threshold point I think many of us reach when a fish won't break and we begin to contemplate buying a bag of feeders.

I picked up two red tail cudas (at least that's what they look like to me) about a week ago and threw them into my overstocked 120. Everyone in that tank (including an ATF, Scomb, and Datnoid) is on tilapia chunks. I figured that these two would pick up quicker with a larger ATF hitting the food, but thus far they've refused to eat. I think I may have seen the briefest bit of interested shown by one of the fish yesterday, but I can't be sure.

they're medium sized, one being about 5-6" and the other between 6-7". I haven't witnessed any aggression, although my hujeta gar did jump out of the tank a few days after their introduction (no scars though).

Just wondering if this is normal for these guy to take this long to break. I've waited a loooooooooooooooong time to come across some red tail barracudas, and I'd hate to loose these guys.


Thanks,
John

 

[Chicxulub]

I've never really had luck with Aces. Sorry I can't be of any help, but IMO these things are harder than ATF to switch.

 

[johnnytaboo]

Crap. You're the last person I wanted to hear that from Rob. Well, I'll keep trying. I guess I should just watch their stomachs to make sure they aren't getting too thin then.

I'll post some of my usual crappy cell phone pics. Hope they're enough to ID these guys.

My BATF actually photo-bombed them a few times.


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[crenicichla444]

Nice red tails! What worked well for hard to break fish like boulengerella (sorry never kept aces before) was get a peaceful cichlids or fish that likes to chew and spit out its food. When it chews it a bit and spits it out other fish smell it and more importantly see it. When it spits it out it gives other fish a chance to grab it and taste it themselves. I had a 6 inch Venezuelan pike cichlid do that with FD krill and eventually all my fish including boulengerella, tarpon and others got off live. Took only a week and a half. Previously I starved them for two months straight. GL with the aces man they look sweet


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[fishnatics]

In the 2yrs that I've owned one. I was never able to break the live food. GL and let us know how it goes.

 

[kno4te]

I had some prior. I was able to get a few of them on floating krill and flakes but had some chalceus teach them to take it and I had to starve them. It took me about several weeks. They picked up quick once the chalceus were introduced and schooling together. Those reds look really nice in the pics!


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[piranhaman00]

Wow great looking fish. Good luck and keep it updated


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[Charney]

i actually found my group (3 yellow tails and one red tail) pretty easy to break. I have never been able to get them to hit fish/shrimp fillet chunks though. I started with cutting up silversides and throwing them in the tank. They learned to hit these pretty quickly. I think two of them needed the silver side pieces to be thrown into a the power head. Once coming up to the surface to eat this they took hikari carnivore pellets pretty quickly. One of the cuda was a late addition and just learned from the other. I plan on just adding more to the group and assume they will figure it out.

 

[johnnytaboo]

Thanks for the input everyone. Charney, that's good to hear. Non of the other fish in this tank are huge fans of silversides, but I'll try that tonight. I've got some floating krill too, so I may as well throw a few of those in as well.

I had tried some defrosted frozen krill, but only the catfish and the bichirs really seem to enjoy those.

I believe I am officially at the one week mark - and the fish seem to be doing fine, but they have not eaten.

 

[johnnytaboo]

Well that was terrifying. I was positive they were going to die. I even bought feeders, not that it did any good.

I broke and threw in 7 rosies last week: the larger cuda got 1, and my ATF and Scomb grabbed the rest faster than I thought possible. The end result was the smaller cuda still had not eaten anything, and my ATF refused tilapia for the next 2 days

But two days ago, FINALLY, the small one broke!!!!!!!!! I dropped in the end of a shrimp tail (just meat) and I don't know why, but he hit it. They next day, he was at the surface, and trying to take food from the ATF (which is a new thing for me to worry about). He hits hard and fast, and hopefully his behavior will rub off on the larger cuda so I can finally relax completely.

Anyways, just wanted to update with some good news. Happy holidays everyone!

- John