Dat feeding

[R0B]

So I'm new to dats and I have a question about changing their diet. what statagies are out there to get them on dry foods outside of starving them?
Suggestions on the best live food until the diet change happens? With my other tanks I usually stay away from live food such as feeders becuase im affraid of illnesses.

Here is the little guy.

 

[dragonfish18]

for live food i feed them blood worms...but u can substitute with frozen krills, brime shrimp, tuflex or blood worms.

i think its easyer to convert them to dried krills them to pellets

i keep a bichir with my dats and it would encourage my dats to goto the surface and feed on krills as they usually hide as juvies

as they adapted to snappin at the krills over time i mixed a few pellets in and took out more krills as time went on and eventually just feed pellets

+ it might help to hav a rutine feeding time.....so they get prepared around that time
also my biggest problem was they never went to the top always hid in drift wood

 

[R0B]

Thanks Dragonfish18, that sounds like a solid sugestion. Im going to try that. I will be moving the little guy to one of my other tanks a soon as I can get rid of the one fish thats in there.. the bichir, its an ornate?

 

[brianp]

In my 350, I have three large STs and two 5-6" ITs. The ITs are often out-competed by the larger, more aggressive STs and sometimes get very little to eat. The one advantage the ITs have, however, is that they will gladly eat dead feeders. So, whenever I buy live feeders, I remove some and freeze them (which also kills potential disease organisms). Later, I thaw them and drop them into the tank. The dead feeders are ignored by the STs, but readily eaten by the two ITs...everyone is happy. In addition to the feeders, I scour the frozen food section of the Asian markets for clams, periwinkles, silversides, anchovies, shrimps, etc. I cut this stuff up into chunks, soak in water to remove the salt and most of this is eaten by both the STs and the ITs.

 

[R0B]

any others?

 

[XB aro]

i got my silver arowana onto hikari carnivore by putting in a pile of FD shrimp and i would put 1 or 2 pellets ontop of the floatin FD shrimp, slowly took away FD shrimp. btw love the dat, wish i could find one...

 

[dragonfish18]

Thanks Dragonfish18, that sounds like a solid sugestion. Im going to try that. I will be moving the little guy to one of my other tanks a soon as I can get rid of the one fish thats in there.. the bichir, its an ornate?

i have a sengal bichir it probly dosent matter what kind im planing on getting some endlis

 

[Ade]

Out of 10 IT's, all eat frozen/defrosted shrimp, muscle, lancefish, whitebait

I have managed to get 3 onto Carnivore and massivore.

Takes time though. Maybe 4-5 months for pellets.

I leave the pellets (and or anytype of chopped up defrosted frozen food)
in a bowl with a frozen chunk of bloodworm. Then put bowl in fridge overnight.
Then dump the whole marinated cocktail in tank the next day.

Slowly reduce the amount of bloodworms over time.

I got both my rays onto tetraprima, carnivore and massivore this way also.

I would stay away from feeders straight away, or back to stage 1 again.

Let us know how it goes.

 

[R0B]

Thanks for all the suggestions guys. I'll keep ya posted!

 

[benzjamin13]

I never got mine past Freeze-Dried Krill, but what dragonfish18 sounds about right.