Has anyone ever tried eat or die on a fish to get them over to pellets and had the fish die because they refused to eat the pellets? Just wondering if there is a better way to try to get a fish over to pellets.
Any Failures with Eat or Die?
- Thread starter KelberiFishLover19
- Start date
I had a bichir go almost 2 months without eating,i ended up giving in.
Only fail by the owner 90% of time 
Survival instinct will kick in when its starve itself long enough.
Best practice is keep provide the same food at feeding time and remove the food after 5~10 minutes, some fish take a week or more before get its eyes on pellets.
Survival instinct will kick in when its starve itself long enough.
Best practice is keep provide the same food at feeding time and remove the food after 5~10 minutes, some fish take a week or more before get its eyes on pellets.
in my experience bichirs are to stubborn for this, too.
What worked for me was, to mix the pellets with something they like (e.g raw shrimp) and wait 1-2min before giving it into the aquarium. Bichirs hunt by smell, so if the pellets smell a little like something they like and are used to, they'r much more interested in them.
I have starved to the point of eating pellets the following. Lima catfish, channa, bichir. Bichirs were the fastest, taking about a couple of weeks. The Lima was a wussy that got it's frozen food mugged all the time.
Ime bichirs are the easiest to train. Especially when there are others in the tank. Monkey see monkey do.
This one was just super stubborn
Not only with bichirs, I think with a lot of fish, the monkey see monkey do is the best way to pellet train a "new" fish. It really helps if you have a ravenous fish go really quickly at the food offered. I've noticed the other fish see that this one guy is a hog, and quickly learn to go after the food or starve.
Presoak your pellets of choice in the juice of frozen bloodworms. Only feed in AM when the fish is most hungry, and do not offer any other food. Eventually most fish will slowly but surely start nibbling on the food. Once it is eating like gangbusters slowly over several days wean off of the presoaked food, and convert to 100% pellet. I have trained juvenile fish that were raised exclusively on bloodworms (so uber finicky), and had 100% success rate with this method. Good luck.
I know nothing about bichirs, other than what I have read here. But when I get new fish that are finicky, I like to briefly soak the pellets in Seachem Garlic Guard. After a couple days of that, they tend to take to my pellets. I feed Northfin. I actually do this when I need to medicate a sick fish also. Just dissolve the meds in the garlic guard. It seems to entice them to eat when they are not wanting to.
