I recently just bought two small jack dempseys, and want to feed them floating pellets but they constantly look for food off of the gravel, any way to teach/train them to come up to the surface for the pellets?
Jack Dempsey Feeding
- Thread starter McFall
- Start date
He's being silly I think. He's referring to a dog clicker. As my JD got older, he waits at the top to be fed. He used to eat sinking, (still will if he has too) but prefers floating. Try getting some sinking pellets to start out, and then when they realize that the food comes from above, they should start to gravitate towards the top, and then you can start with the floating pellets. 
I agree with above. I have several JD's in 150 gallon that i've had from about 1 inch. They will learn to eat floating food when they get hungry enough to stop being scared. Just watch the food and make sure it is not sitting in the tank for ever, you might have to scoop out the food after a little bit. (or have a monster Pleco that eats everything)
yeah if they are really tiny like 1in or something then i would get some small sinking pellets to beef them up and then try with the floating ones again when they are a bit older, at that time just put food in and they will see if eventually, but like previously said if they let it sit for too long you will need to remove it to save your water quality
i like hikari but really any sinking pellet you can find that is formulated for cichlids will be fine