I GOT MY ROCKET GAR TO EAT FROZEN FOOD!!!!

[Scrappy71113]

I have a little 4 inch rocket gar. I've been working really hard to get the little guy off of live food. I noticed that he's interested in the pellets I offer until they hit the bottom of the tank. So I decided, when I feed him his live food, I keep my hand over the tank to get him to associate my hands with food.

Well, today, I thawed out some blood worms and picked up a pinch with some tweezers, and held them in the tank. All I had to do was wiggle them a bit and he went right for them!

I'm super excited.
I've read quite a bit about how they are difficult to get off of live food. If I can get him to eat thawed frozen blood worms, I feel like I can get him to eat pellet foods.

Next step: homemade gel food.
Just going to give him some time to get used to the frozen blood worms first.

 

[Joshuakahan]

I have a little 4 inch rocket gar. I've been working really hard to get the little guy off of live food. I noticed that he's interested in the pellets I offer until they hit the bottom of the tank. So I decided, when I feed him his live food, I keep my hand over the tank to get him to associate my hands with food.

Well, today, I thawed out some blood worms and picked up a pinch with some tweezers, and held them in the tank. All I had to do was wiggle them a bit and he went right for them!

I'm super excited.
I've read quite a bit about how they are difficult to get off of live food. If I can get him to eat thawed frozen blood worms, I feel like I can get him to eat pellet foods.

Next step: homemade gel food.
Just going to give him some time to get used to the frozen blood worms first.

Nice!
I’ve never had much difficulty getting hujeta off of live. I’ve had the best luck with silversides, fresh tilapia and shrimp and FD krill. I was able to get them to eat pellets but it was by taking advantage of them eating anything that hit the water
I have 3 in QT atm and they’ll nibble bloodworms and brine but go at FD krill pretty hard

 

[jjohnwm]

Nice going; good idea to accustom the fish to eating a favoured food with your hand overhead, although I hope that doesn't someday come back to bite you on the a** when one of them decides the fingers look pretty good too.

It's a pleasure to hear about someone actually using logic and common sense while trying to train a fish onto frozen or prepared food. It gets tiresome to read about fishkeepers moaning about how stubborn their fish are, only to find that the sum total of their method consists of starving the fish for a few days and then dropping in a few pellets and expecting the animal to gorge itself.

In order to train a fish...you'e gotta be just a little bit smarter than the fish...

When you start with the gel foods, experiment until you get the least possible amount of gelatin necessary to hold everything together, and grind or puree the ingredients pretty fine. Then, when it's set, cut it into strips of a size that allow easy swallowing, and be prepared to present it with forceps at first. Gels are great; once you get the fish onto them (usually pretty easy), they allow you to incorporate literally any food or supplement you want to use.

 

[Joshuakahan]

Nice going; good idea to accustom the fish to eating a favoured food with your hand overhead, although I hope that doesn't someday come back to bite you on the a** when one of them decides the fingers look pretty good too.

It's a pleasure to hear about someone actually using logic and common sense while trying to train a fish onto frozen or prepared food. It gets tiresome to read about fishkeepers moaning about how stubborn their fish are, only to find that the sum total of their method consists of starving the fish for a few days and then dropping in a few pellets and expecting the animal to gorge itself.

In order to train a fish...you'e gotta be just a little bit smarter than the fish...

When you start with the gel foods, experiment until you get the least possible amount of gelatin necessary to hold everything together, and grind or puree the ingredients pretty fine. Then, when it's set, cut it into strips of a size that allow easy swallowing, and be prepared to present it with forceps at first. Gels are great; once you get the fish onto them (usually pretty easy), they allow you to incorporate literally any food or supplement you want to use.

Taking advantage of the Fish’s instincts usually works well, I’ve got hujeta, rt cuda, VATF, odoes and others off of live by just throwing food down so that it makes a splash

 

[Scrappy71113]

Taking advantage of the Fish’s instincts usually works well, I’ve got hujeta, rt cuda, VATF, odoes and others off of live by just throwing food down so that it makes a splash

I'll give that a try. Thank you

 

[Scrappy71113]

Nice!
I’ve never had much difficulty getting hujeta off of live. I’ve had the best luck with silversides, fresh tilapia and shrimp and FD krill. I was able to get them to eat pellets but it was by taking advantage of them eating anything that hit the water
I have 3 in QT atm and they’ll nibble bloodworms and brine but go at FD krill pretty hard

Maybe I should try floating food instead of sinking pellets. Maybe they would be more interested in something that moves with the flow of water vs something that just hits the bottom and doesn't move.

 

[Scrappy71113]

Nice going; good idea to accustom the fish to eating a favoured food with your hand overhead, although I hope that doesn't someday come back to bite you on the a** when one of them decides the fingers look pretty good too.

It's a pleasure to hear about someone actually using logic and common sense while trying to train a fish onto frozen or prepared food. It gets tiresome to read about fishkeepers moaning about how stubborn their fish are, only to find that the sum total of their method consists of starving the fish for a few days and then dropping in a few pellets and expecting the animal to gorge itself.

In order to train a fish...you'e gotta be just a little bit smarter than the fish...

When you start with the gel foods, experiment until you get the least possible amount of gelatin necessary to hold everything together, and grind or puree the ingredients pretty fine. Then, when it's set, cut it into strips of a size that allow easy swallowing, and be prepared to present it with forceps at first. Gels are great; once you get the fish onto them (usually pretty easy), they allow you to incorporate literally any food or supplement you want to use.

I've made medicated gel foods in the past. Grinding the pellets down broke my cheap food processor
I'll have to get another one.

I definitely try to train my fish to eat from my hands for more interaction. It's already backfired when my Oscar tried to rip my finger off and cut me pretty good lol.
But it's hilarious when I put my hand in the goldfish tank and those fat little ping pong balls get to excited and start bouncing around the tank.

 

[Joshuakahan]

Maybe I should try floating food instead of sinking pellets. Maybe they would be more interested in something that moves with the flow of water vs something that just hits the bottom and doesn't move.

Maybe, but getting them conditioned to think anything that gets dropped in is food and to eat as soon as it touches the water is the easiest way I think. Once the foods been in there for more than a second or two, they’ll figure out it is or isn’t something they want to eat

 

[Trouser Cough]

Taking advantage of the Fish’s instincts usually works well, I’ve got hujeta, rt cuda, VATF, odoes and others off of live by just throwing food down so that it makes a splash

I second that for sure. For young cichla I'll open the lid such that the glass is on a roughly 30* angle and then toss pellets against the glass such that they hit the angled lid and then bounce into the water. They get conditioned to the tap/splash, tap/splash, tap/splash and it often makes them hit the food aggressively where had I just plopped it on the surface they'd not have given it a second look.

 

[Scrappy71113]

I second that for sure. For young cichla I'll open the lid such that the glass is on a roughly 30* angle and then toss pellets against the glass such that they hit the angled lid and then bounce into the water. They get conditioned to the tap/splash, tap/splash, tap/splash and it often makes them hit the food aggressively where had I just plopped it on the surface they'd not have given it a second look.

One of my friends would tap the lid before feeding her fish.
It's quite interesting watching the different ways they respond to things like seeing food containers and what not.
But I can definitely see how having a "dinner bell" could help. I might have to try this one as well.