Attempting to trick a picky fish

[Scrappy71113]

Oh trust me, I've got the 911 on Brick now. He gets the same food regardless of whether he eats or not. So I guess he's tired of the game too! Brick does show some excitement a mealtime especially if I wait until late (which is deliberate on my part). This allows his hunger to spike a bit, so no pickiness. And he's surrounded by greedy fish so that's been a benefit.

If I'm too late with food I get puffed at every time. But since people work and fish don't, that's just gonna happen sometimes.

Brick sounds like quite the character lol.
Brutus and Flower have never been picky thankfully. But Brutus is a butt hole and will gladly bite me every chance he gets, and flower is shy and acts like a delicate flower, always hiding behind Brutus lol.
I have to say, my heart belongs to the Oscars, but this red devil is a close second.

 

[Scrappy71113]

Sounds good to me! Please understand that I am not saying that a live-food-only fish...or even a fish that somebody has spoiled rotten on some single "gourmet" prepared food...should be trained or weaned off its limited diet by suddenly just starving it. Most of the threads on this topic refer to people taking a live-food-only fish, and starving it for awhile before dropping in a couple of pellets. This can sometimes work...maybe even often!...but there are plenty of fish that require a bit more finesse to train. It's not that they are picky or stubborn, but rather that many predators simply do not recognize non-living prey as food.

They must first (if wild-caught) be accustomed to eating at all in captivity. Once they are feeding regularly, on whatever gets them going initially, the owner may then need to try a few tricks like scenting the new food with the juices of the old, or tossing the new food into the tank during a "feeding frenzy", or mixing it with the readily-accepted food, or utilizing the outlet of a pump or filter to impart motion, or employing other fish in the tank to demonstrate the edibility of the food and spur the newcomer on...or all of the above. This is part and parcel of fishkeeping; people who think that starvation for a couple days will automatically entice any and all species of fish, especially predators, to just start showing down on pellets out of a bag are delusional.

The "take it or leave it" approach that I was half-kidding about was specifically in relation to fish that have been eating prepared foods just fine for awhile, but then get into a snit and "demand" something special. If you know they don't need live food, if they have been eating prepared stuff for awhile but now decide they want to have their vents smooched...that's a shame, but it ain't happening in my fishroom, and shouldn't be tolerated in anybody else's either. If my fish don't eat...a rare occurrence...or for that matter if their reaction to the food is in any way reduced or lessened, it's time to remove the stuff immediately and not offer more until at least tomorrow, maybe the next day. A varied diet with different foods offered at each meal reduces the chances of this ever being required.

My current plan is to get the krill into the fridge tomorrow (Friday in case you're in a future time zone) to thaw, and start packing it with pellets Saturday. I'm going to try a gradual increase in the number pellets. I plan on soaking the pellets in liquid vitamins and get them nice and soft so he can't just sift them out.
Once he's on a mostly pellet diet, I'll remove the vitamins and just soak them in water. From there, I'll stop soaking them. I'm hoping to have him on mostly pellets by the end of next month.
After I get him on pellets, I'll start introducing other foods to get him used to variety. I'd like to see this guy eat a few crickets and meal worms and some peas and carrots and banana and watermelon.

I'm honestly surprised he hasn't chowed down on the danios yet. They hang out with him!!! They're more afraid of me than him!!! I thought red devils were supposed to be ruthless murderers but mine has pets

 

[FINWIN]

Brick sounds like quite the character lol.
Brutus and Flower have never been picky thankfully. But Brutus is a butt hole and will gladly bite me every chance he gets, and flower is shy and acts like a delicate flower, always hiding behind Brutus lol.
I have to say, my heart belongs to the Oscars, but this red devil is a close second.

Brutus is just getting seasoning for his meal when he bites! Sounds like Flower likes being cozy

 

[FINWIN]

My current plan is to get the krill into the fridge tomorrow (Friday in case you're in a future time zone) to thaw, and start packing it with pellets Saturday. I'm going to try a gradual increase in the number pellets. I plan on soaking the pellets in liquid vitamins and get them nice and soft so he can't just sift them out.
Once he's on a mostly pellet diet, I'll remove the vitamins and just soak them in water. From there, I'll stop soaking them. I'm hoping to have him on mostly pellets by the end of next month.
After I get him on pellets, I'll start introducing other foods to get him used to variety. I'd like to see this guy eat a few crickets and meal worms and some peas and carrots and banana and watermelon.

I'm honestly surprised he hasn't chowed down on the danios yet. They hang out with him!!! They're more afraid of me than him!!! ☹ I thought red devils were supposed to be ruthless murderers but mine has pets

Good luck with the pellet trick...it only worked for me if I made the pellets mushy and blended them in. But Brick figured that out too...he would stop and taste then a cloud of mush pellet would come out. Whole pellets got sifted out...it was funny watching his jaws work while he did it.

 

[Scrappy71113]

Good luck with the pellet trick...it only worked for me if I made the pellets mushy and blended them in. But Brick figured that out too...he would stop and taste then a cloud of mush pellet would come out. Whole pellets got sifted out...it was funny watching his jaws work while he did it.

I can definitely see this guy doing that for sure. He seems pretty smart. He likes to play. Whenever I put my hand in the tank, he'll boop my hand with his nose. He doesn't mind me booping back as long as it's his fins or head and it turns into a game of tag, but he'll go pout if I touch his body. He only bit me once, and it was because I accidentally gave him my axolotls food instead of his food and had to scoop it out. He give me a little nip, but not enough to hurt, just enough to get my attention, like "hey, that's mine!"

Brutus likes to jump and bite my face. He got my finger once, bad enough to make me bleed he loves my daughter though.
If she goes up to the tank, he gets excited and starts smacking and wiggling. He ignores me unless I grab the food lol

 

[ken31cay]

Congrats to your fish...he has you well and truly trained.

Who's a good boy?

You need to use the same training method my mother used on me when I was a child. At every meal, I was offered two choices: take it...or leave it.

Alright, so this is the second time you made me spurt coffee out of my mouth laughing... thanks for the laugh

 

[ken31cay]

I had a Frontosa colony that would only eat large frozen krill after having eaten a variety of Northfin pellets, raw fish, etc. After a few pathetic attempts to get them back on pellets I just gave in. My current colony eats pellets with gusto and so it will literally be years before I let them try other foods. I'm either too much of a softy and/or I don't want to spend the time it takes once a fish turns into a picky eater.