Since feeders had become expensive and I have no time to go get them, I decided to cut my four 9-10 inch monos from feeders. After a week or so, two of the four turned around and started taking peeled shrimp. No pellets yet but I have been pushing hikari golds into the shrimp and dropping it in. The two are taking it in. Now for the other two, it has almost been a month since they had eaten and has gotten really skinny. I'm kinda worried (Ya just don't know how many times I had thought about giving in and go get some feeders) but I'm going to hold my ground. I've tried frozen bloodworms but no luck. What now fellas?
Almost a month...
- Thread starter PeacockKeeper
- Start date
you have to ween them from live to krill/shrimp/worms/pellets etc.From what I have seen if you hand feed them feeders by tossing them in the tank slowly instead of all at once they will begin to get used to the splash of you tossing them in the tank-then toss in krill/shrimp/pellets etc in between the feeders so the constantly attack when the splash comes of you throwing in food.I also have been un-freeze drying my krill and pellets by leaving them in water for a little while b4 I begin my tricks.Mine are still only 3-4" right now but I got 2 of em definitely accepting variety and 1 of em wont touch anything not moving but will take garden worms or blood worms which is a start.Give it a try.
I've tried "dropping feeder and then pellets/krill in between" for about three batches of feeders (over 300 feeders) for a month and a half with no luck. That is why I decided to cut them cold from feeders. Should I continue to starve them?
hmmmm.........thats a tough call.I weighed these options myself and just bought out all the rosies I could get from petsmart and put them in quarantine just in case.This could be a pain in the arse since you definitely dont want to kill them by starvation and feeders are horrible,not to mention get expensive.right now theyre in my 125 with all my big guys but dont get bothered at all,problem I have is now all my fish have been getting their share of feeders since I have to feed the bass and my pike the feeders.I am contemplating putting them all in my 75 gallon temporarily to try and ween the bass off the fish and not expose my other fish to feeders.then I would leave the pike and get some more smaller fish eaters and leave them in the 75 and put the orinos back into the 125 to grow up some more once theyre off the live diet.In your case I am not sure if its too late.I would like to say that if you starve them long enough theyll have to eat but I dont think thats the case.you may just have to continue to try and ween them and if all else fails-feeders is your only option but I am not 100% positive either.I wish some more keepers would chime in with their experience on this and hopefully give some more options.
The one in my avatar is not one of the four. He is from my other tank with seven others and is taking everything I drop in their tank. The one in the avatar is about 5-6 inches now.
Silver, besides the driftwood, fake plants, bubble wand, heater and gravel its just the four peacocks and a common pleco 
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.you may wanna try a teacher fish since youve had no progress over amonth already..
if your other cichla are taking pellets already in the other tank, why cant you put thse four in with the others, that way theyll see the other bass eating pellets and will follow suit.. its the old saying "monkey see, monkey do" sort of thing.
if your other cichla are taking pellets already in the other tank, why cant you put thse four in with the others, that way theyll see the other bass eating pellets and will follow suit.. its the old saying "monkey see, monkey do" sort of thing.
Would the size difference be a issue? I don't want the big guys punking my lil ones and maybe killing them.