My datnoid is being a punk!

[Nikkitine]

I've been trying to ween my silver dat off of live food for a week now and get him to accept Hikari food sticks and sinking carnivore pellets, but he seriously will have none of it and actually turns the other way when I wave it in front of his face =( So far the only thing that he's ever been interested in are feeders, since the LFS I got him from fed them exclusively to their dats He'll eat frozen bloodworms but I find it so hectic since he only eats the ones that float directly in front of his face. My water circulation is pretty high so they get everywhere. I've also tried market shrimp but he won't give those a second look either. He also spends all of his days hiding underneath my tree stump and never ventures out to check around the surface for any type of food (even though my archers are gluttons when it comes to food sticks). Any advice from the dat pros on trying to get this mule on pellets? Thanks a bunch!

 

[Miguel]

Dats love to hide. That is normal.

Perhaps you should manitain the live feeder regimen untill he is well established in the tank and trusts his environment.

Afterwards you can start fighting with him.

With my skittish ones ( some are outgoing ) I got squid, in slivers, pick it up with a prong/ tweezer(?) and make it "swimm " in front of them. They went for it with gusto.

Nowadays, they see the prong they know what is coming....

 

[Nikkitine]

Thanks for the reply, Miguel =) Yeah, the little guy loves his spot underneath my tree stump, I find it rather cute that he swims totally sideways just to hide. I've had him for about 2 weeks now and he's actually really stable even though all he does is hide. I tried bare tanking it a little to see if he would be more outgoing but that just made everyone else unhappy, especially my eels, so I scrapped that idea and put my stump back XD

I've tried "swimming" shrimp in front of him but that does nothing, so I'll try some squid and see how he'll take it =)

 

[Miguel]

maybe you should try with less light. diminish the light in the tank.

once he starts eating, get it back to normal

 

[shua71]

How big is he? Maybe try starving him until he eats the shrimp or pellets?

 

[Nikkitine]

I dimmed the light by adding some aluminum foil to my strip light. It helped a little bit with him being a little more venturous. I currently have 2 dats right now, both only about 3". My other dat took a hikari stick wrapped in shrimp though XD This guy sniffed at it a little but backed away again but I find he has a little bit of interest in it now since he saw his friend eat. I fed him some worms today and I'll try the sticks again tomorrow. Wish me luck =] Thanks!

 

[Ade]

If u are desperate to convert to pellets , then do it ALL the way, u need very strong will power to see your fish not eat for 4 weeks or more before it's converted. As soon ad u feed live, it's back to square 1.

If u don't or cant stand to see your dats go through that/starving.... then fatten up on frozen prawns and schrimp...anything that is NOT live. When they are 4 inch or more, then u are ready to start converting to pellets.