horrible diet or not??

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GOSKN5

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Oct 24, 2011
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Danville, VA
I have a rotkiel severum who will not touch a pellet... I got him at 5" or so and he will only eat freeze dried brine shrimp (hikari) and frozen blood worms. I have tried all kinds of pellets flakes etc...

Can he survive and be healthy on this diet? If not any other suggestions...

By the way I starved him for 3 weeks trying to pellet train... Won't even look at them... Anything else that is big and floats like the FD brine??

Thanks
 
Of course he can survive on that diet. In fact, that diet is very good for him, but not forever. I wouldn't feed my cichlid's that because it is not a variety. My cichlids eat a variety.

3 weeks of starving? that is one picky cichlid lol. What other fish do you have with him? If he see's other fish eating the pellets he might give it a try.

If that doesn't work, then go out and buy a whole lot more frozen foods because 2 foods isn't enough IMO.
 
i wouldn't think that would harm him. my old cichlids would only eat freeze dried plankton, and the occasional feeder fish and they were all very healthy and happy
 
Had an EBJD that was 'spoiled' with bloodworms by the lfs - freeze dried and frozen. I could not figure out how to feed that fish pellets and like you he went 10 days w/o food before I gave in. He won the battle. I don't believe it is a healthy diet at all - not enough vits and veggies.

Did you try Garlic Guard or similar with the pellets? Maybe setting the pellets in bloodworm juice for awhile? Good luck they are tough to break. If you can't get him to eat anything else, I would consider adding supplements to his food or water.

GOSKN5 said:
I have a rotkiel severum who will not touch a pellet... I got him at 5" or so and he will only eat freeze dried brine shrimp (hikari) and frozen blood worms. I have tried all kinds of pellets flakes etc...

Can he survive and be healthy on this diet? If not any other suggestions...

By the way I starved him for 3 weeks trying to pellet train... Won't even look at them... Anything else that is big and floats like the FD brine??

Thanks
Click to expand...
 
Bloodworms are probably more nutritious than brine shrimp, but it would be nice to get him on a pellet. Does he have tankmates? There are a few things you can try. As Kivstev mentioned, let a chunk of bloodworms melt in a cup, then dump some pellets in and let them soak up the liquid from the bloodworms. You can also do this with brine shrimp. Dump it all into the tank together and see if he'll attempt taking the pellets. What's your tank temperature? When you are starving him to try and get him to take pellets, bump the heat to something like 84 - 86F to really get his metabolism going. When acclimating young discus this is always a good trick to get them hungry and active.

My notatus didn't want to take pellets until I put them in a community with other severums, and within a couple weeks they realized that if they wanted to get anything to eat, they had to jump into the feeding frenzy and grab whatever was available.
 
he with another severum and some tetras, and they all eat pellets like crazy....

the funny thing is, soaking the pellets wont work... he does not look at the pellets as food... its not the taste of them because he never tries them... he just doesnt see it as food is my guess.... its a weird fish...

i need some that floats, because that is all he will look at.... i am going to try some larger flakes maybe or something... if i had something better that resembled the floating FD brine shrimp he would devour it I bet.... guess I need to add to the food closet....
 
Not sure if I read this wrong but have you only tried floating pellets? I'd try a variety of sinking pellets to see if he'll go for them. Also try adding deshelled peas to its diet to add some veggies to its diet. My breeding pair of Rokeils love deshelled peas!
 
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