Jag not taking anything?

[Cecropia]

I finally got back into the hobby after my loss and my move a few months ago and have ran into an issue with my future wet pet.

I've had this jag for about 2 months now and she/he's put on about an inch but doesn't seem to be eating anything. I starved him for three days and he wouldn't even eat the frozen bloodworms I just tossed him. The con fry remain untouched but they do seem to thin out during the week but only by a few. When I first introduced them he just swallowed them all and moved them to a corner of the tank and kept them there.

I've tried every food I have: Fd mysis shrimp pieces, bloodworms, mini hikari gold pellets, mini hikari bio gold+ pellets, and some cheap top fin mess my cons loooove for some odd reason. 95% of the time he'll mouth the food and spit it back out.

I had an issue before I got this jag where the tanks acidity would drop to 5ish and the KH was 0, and it ended up killing the xanthic JD I had before I figured out what was going on So I've been keeping an eye out and have had the tank stable at the following parameters 3 months..

Paras:
nitrate- 10ppm
nitrite- 0ppm
KH- 130ppm
pH- 8.0
GH- 100ppm
chlorine- 0

 

[Cross127]

Try doing massive water changes like 80% my jags do the same exact thing. They will not touch food for weeks even if the nitrate is at 10ppm. But after that one big one every so often everything seems to level out.

Also try dicing up garlic and sprinkle it in with the food. Garlic stimulates them to eat.

If all goes wrong get a can of JumboKrill from tetra I believe. The stuff is like crack for fish they cannot get enough of it. The only down side is once they eat it and start to get hooked good luck trying to feed them pellets again. It took me months and lots of $$ to get them off it. Because it's expensive and if they dont eat something then you got problems.

 

[Cecropia]

Thanks! I've been doing 40% water changes every 4 days b/c I'm OCD like that

Guess I'll try bigger ones and see how it goes.

 

[Red Devil]

Are they your own healthy raised feeders?Are they the only feeders he has eaten? otherwise i would suspect the LFS feeders are not healthy... other then that i cannot think of anything.. except his appearance.. how does he look... scales okay.. swimming okay.. normal acting..?

 

[Cecropia]

He's normal acting as far as I can tell. Bright eyes, slime coat is clear. Fins not clamped.

The feeders were raised in the same room. He's hasn't ate much since I've got him.

 

[jordanlewis100]

try earthworms(nightcrawlers) this usually invokes a feeding response as long as the worm you try is not too big as that can sometimes scare them at first

 

[Cross127]

Jags are very very picky IME. Honestly it gets me mad that I can't just feed them regularly like the rest of my cichlids. They are the only ones that are fussy to no end.

I know how you feel. Plus when your fish start getting skinny it makes feel horrible but you know you are trying everything.

your W/C schedule is fine keep it that way. I do 40-50% a week and once a month an 80%.