Should I bother..?

axs377

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So I've been feeding my tank mainly massivore and my fish destroy it. However after reading posts on nls and how good it is I bought a couple containers of the thera A with garlic in 2 sizes to switch them over...I'm at a week and they still won't touch it. They are hungry though Everytime I get near the tank they go nuts for me to feed them. They will occasionally grab a pellet, but spit them out immediately. I hate starving them because I want maximum growth and some are still younger. What would you do? Say screw it and stick to massivore or keep starving and trying the NLS? If it matters fish are a midas, chancho, Rd, Amarillo, a few festae, a flower horn, and some small clown loaches (I believe 2 were eaten during the starve so far). Tank is a 320-330, 75 gal sump, uv, and 40gpd drip.
 

robham777

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Maybe try a different pellet, and see if it's just the nls that they don't like.
 
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axs377

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How important is it? Eventually they will eat.
I gave up after I caught my big red devil eating another clown loach...too much of a size difference and doubt the Rd is going to switch when he has some tasty options.
 

Yuki Rihwa

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they will eventually accept those nls pellets. Somehow all my fishes got hard time to switch over NLS pellet too but evenually they all eat it and time goes by now they hit it like crazy.
 
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slippery slimecoat

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Keeping clown loaches with those fish seems like a bad mix to me regardless of what pellets the cichlids are eating. With a tank the size of yours and enough hiding spots I don't doubt it can work. Just seems far from ideal for the loaches imo.

As far as the food, Massivore is like crack for fish. Once their hooked, it'll take an intervention to get them off it lol
 

RD.

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IME all of those species are generally pretty aggressive eaters, but with switching from Massivore to NLS some might hold out for 2-3 weeks. With mature adults, perhaps even longer? If wild caught fish (both freshwater & marine) can be trained to eat NLS, training captive freshwater species such as yours shouldn't prove overly difficult. Most people give in to easily .....
 
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axs377

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Lol, I agree it shouldn't be too hard I just give in too easy. The massivore is like crack. They will gobble it down so greedily competing with each other that sometimes they even puke it up later from over stuffing. The mess that ensues along with the lower quality of the pellet compared to nls is one reason I was trying to switch. I was using hikari bio gold and they ate that ok, but a portion would always end up getting quickly sucked into the overflows, which due to my setup can't be turned off without refilling a portion of the tank...so I wanted a sinking pellet. I was thinking the CLs might have been a bad addition, though its odd the bigger fish never looked twice at the CLs until I stopped feeding them...
 
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