Betty Eating From My Hand!!

[pookie]

Well she ate from me yesterday, and I decided to try again today..

She was much less scared and I feed her in the same spot being this rock every time, so I just put my hand in and just sat it in that area and didnt more it and as soon as she noticed the tilapia in the water she went right to her spot lol

This was her begging as soon as I started messing around the tank

Some more begging..

She went straight to her feeding spot as soon as she smelled it..

Making sure that was tilapia in front of her, She was sniffing around so much I almost got afraid she was going to bite my finger lol

She grabbed the chunk and shook it like a shark, and then swam away and came back and did it again! The second time with no sniffing, just a bit ol' bite!

Then after she got a few nice mouthfuls of it I let her have the chunk and she swam off to eat her dinner

I have noticed that she seems to have started growing at a faster rate, and she filled out A LOT more since I switched to giving her tilapia and occasional shrimp pellets. I think its because she was having to find them before the Gourami ate them, seeing as she has a Boyfriend Gourami who stalks her all the time lol
They cant eat the tilapia and she gets much more "fierce" with them if they her have fish chunk!

 

[lix.ma14]

very nice! It seems U mastered the art of bichir hand feeding! don't worry so much of Betty biting ur finger!

 

[NCStateFisher]

awesome. I kinda want to try this out with my guys at some point but i feel my severum would barge in and steal it haha

 

[Spiritofthesoul]

I cant do it... Not in my 2.5ft high tank!

 

[JamesF]

Nice to see.
You should really feed much smaller pieces though, unless you want her to choke to death. They don't really chew.

 

[pookie]

Nice to see.
You should really feed much smaller pieces though, unless you want her to choke to death. They don't really chew.

It puffs up once it hits the water, its not a big piece and I held onto it as she came back and took a few "bites" out of it and it was a lot smaller.
I did drop a piece that was to big in when I first started feeding her tilapia and she wouldnt let me get it from her, and she would almost roll around and she broke it into smaller chunks.

very nice! It seems U mastered the art of bichir hand feeding! don't worry so much of Betty biting ur finger!

Yea I am not so worried lol right now, maybe when she gets bigger I might be a little if'y about her grabbing my finger.

awesome. I kinda want to try this out with my guys at some point but i feel my severum would barge in and steal it haha

Well feed the severum until it shows no interest in food then try feeding your bichirs! My gourami keep stalking her when she has tilapia but they are so small they cant get it away from her lol

 

[3000gt]

that is very cool

 

[azura]

nice .... i did hand feeding too for my endli coz my ITs always snatch the food before can reached to bottom

 

[szymon328]

train it to be touched and start petting it lol ive seen a video of a guy petting his rtc and it actually swam up to his hand to be touched... like a cat lol

 

[pookie]

She is still a little "scary" but now I can see once she feels/see's my hand in the tank she comes over and has to see if there is food in it!
I have noticed that she is getting much fatter now, and got to big to fit under the rock cave thing I make for her!
I used to have these big fat goldfish that were like 9-10 years old, they were HUGE everyone thought they were koi, but they loved to rub on my hand and be touch, they knew hand=food. They were so big they would suck on my fingers like a big fat gold baby lol

The Gourami are even losing their hand fear, and the mean male came up all dark and puffy trying to "get me out of his space" it was a little funny