Cant get them off!!!!???

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H

hghlndr85

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Oct 27, 2009
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ok i have 3 cichla right now all about 7-8" one is rio mazan mono other is peru mono and other is azul
im trying to get them off live.
heres the up to date
as of right now the azul takes silversides with fury, other 2 monos wont touch them,but if i throw a frozen feeder in the monos hit it even tried giving them the grey or silver feeders to match the silversides,no luck
they all come to the front of tank in the same corner and all hit from the surface but i cant get the 2 monos on anything! at one point month ago the mono took a cube of blood worms and mysis shrimp he wont touch it now, i starve them for about week and a half and they all lookd really skinny azul hammered silver sides monos turned away, i went and got feeders froze them and monos pigged out. this is extremely challenging
any ideas??
 
Try freeze dried krill. You need to get a fish that eats pellets to help train your others and stop the feeders all together. Try market shrimp and fish fillets to. I have pbass that eat pellets and everything i talked about aswell. Some of the bass ive had in the past just out of nowhere started eating other things without me starving them.
 
anyone else?
 
Sometimes you can get them into a "feeding frenzy" You said one eats frozen silversides and the other two eat frozen comets. Don't feed them for 2 or 3 days then dump both kinds of food in there at the same time. Chances are they will just gulp up what ever is closer. Feed that way every 3 days, so every time they are hungry and fighting for food. Take one or two frozen comets out and add one or two silver sides each feeding. Most likely they are going to hammer anything you drop in the tank. You want to start feeding shrimp? Start putting in small amounts of shrimp each feeding and gradually increase each time. If there's any food left over you fed too much, remember this is training, your not bulking them up right now. Your just getting the fish to see you as the food provider. When they see you with a cup of food or what ever container it is you use they will be ready to eat.
I don't subscribe to starving them any longer than 3 days. It seems to me after 4 or 5 days with out eating they get into a lethargic mode and they stop expending energy for hunting for food and switch to sit and wait strategity. You want them in the hunting, always hungry, small feedings, mode. When water splashes out of the tank during feeding time, that's when you drop in something different.
 
You may not want to hear this but, my three Mono's went for three weeks without eating anything i threw in the tank, and i tried every food on the market, they did not budge. I had to give in and give them live food again, these fish would rather die of starvation, before eating pellets, silverside or any other known fish food......Good Luck.
 
Do u have alot of tankmates with your Pbass's? What I noticed how I converted mine off was my Pbass may have learnt how to accept other foods by watching his/her tank mates eating away at pellets, shrimp, silversides. My tank was quite overstocked as I had 13 large carnivorious fish with him and they all eat like pigs. It took about 2-3 weeks starvation for me to convert one of my 13" Pbass to accept non live food. I just hope the other large Pbass will learn the same way. Anyways Good Luck.
 
What's up Ian, have you tried feeding 1 comet at a time each feeding for a couple weeks then slowly beginning a variation between comet, cube, comet, comet, and so on until you can get him to do straight cubes? It worked on my mono for a while until I accidentally added a few feeders and the process began again. If it works don't ever give him live again, there are no second chances in my opinion. Good luck it's a *****.
 
all bass successfully on silversides
 
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