Marbled knife diet...

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Racersk

Racersk

Piranha
MFK Member
Apr 22, 2010
1,153
42
81
Covington
Ok, I have 2 of these guys, one eats only live foods it seems, with the occasional oops it'll grab a silverside meant for my bichers. The other is about half the size and only really has been seen to eat small feeders and earthworms with the occasional silverside piece but even the earthworms seem too big for it to eat. Here is the problem...

I wanted a cleaner in the smaller marbled knifes tank, due to his agro nature, I decided on fiddler crabs, I figured that they would be too big for this little guy to snag for a meal...I was wrong, he now has a crab shell sized lump across his body(I first though it was injured).

Since this crab was so big, should I be worried that it was eaten whole?! Will the shell break down alright? :nilly:
 
i think he should be fine and i would feed him blood worms.
 
Well it's been a week now and the lump is still there, same size too from what I can tell. I see it attack earthworms that my other fish in it's tank haven't seen, but he spits them out quickly.

Do most fish that eat crustations break apart the shell first before eating the shelled critter whole?

I'm getting a little worried now...
:confused:
 
Ok, this is starting to worry me even more now...

It now has small sores on each side of the lump and it is still there, maybe not as big as before, but still there for sure.

Is it time to pull the fish and see if I can 'express' it from the guts of this little guy? Or maybe try to crush it while it's in the fishes belly? or just let nature take it's course.

HELP!
:nilly::nilly:
 
hope all turns out well for you. Thanks for sharing your experience as I never came across this kind of a situation before and find it very informative please keep us posted good learning experience.
 
Thanks for the bump...

I hope this ends well too, at least he/she doesn't seam stressed or 'in pain'. It just frustrates me that I JUST got through healing this fish up after being beat up by another Ret. knife.

Never thought I'd be hoping to see a fish poop! lol
 
I'll work on that tonight, dark, nocturnal knife against dark substrate is a bit difficult to capture to say the least.

Here's a picture of the other knife I have for reference...
IMG00017-20110116-1440.jpg

Excuse the blur-cell phone camera.
 
Never meant to feed the knife with that crab....I thought they would have been too big for the knife to get its mouth around, much less be able to swallow one!

But yes-at this time my other ret. knife is eating Massivores like everyone else. This one will be too if it makes it. :(
 
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