OK... still not eating

[DaveB]

My AT is a real pig when it comes to any fleshy food - market shrimp, frozen krill, feeders - but won't touch the brine shrimp, bloodworms, or dry stuff, even the krill pellets, which every other fish loves just as much as the real stuff.

So to try to solve this I stopped feeding the good stuff to try to force him to eat the pellets. My IT eats them and loves them, plus he eats a bunch of other kinds of pellet and the frozen brine shrimp and bloodworm. But this guy just gets excited and then swims around dodging the food.

It has now been two weeks and I still haven't seen him eat. How long is this supposed to take? He needs to eat something, but I feel like if I feed krill it's just reinforcing his stubbornness.

This morning my girlfriend said she swore he was stalking the giant danios. I think they're still just a tad too big for him, but you never know with these guys. I know eventually they're going to have to move into another tank, but is the fact that he has noticed them an indication that they're screwed now, even if I do feed him?

I'm not that worried about the danios yet, and honestly even though I've had them a while I'd be somewhat amused if he took one down. Mostly I just want to know how the heck to make him eat.

 

[TCZeli]

How big is the AT. This would determine how long it can go without food, and if he was really looking at the danios as food, or just being a bit aggressive towards them.

2 weeks isn't bad at all, unless it is very small. Just keep doing what your doing. He is bound to take somthing rather then just die of starvation.

If your really concerned remove the danios now, and you can try a different feeding technique. I got a couple stubborn NTT's onto pellets by feeding pellets 6 days a week, and on the 7th day gave feeders. Very few, just enough so they had a small meal. Then after seeing other fish eat the pellets everyday and it only being able to eat once a week, it started to take pellets. Now it will eat anything i throw in the tank!

GL

 

[DaveB]

He's 4-5 inches. There are pictures of him in my My Two Dats thread . So not too small. But my IT, who he was double the size of, has grown noticeably since I got the AT, while the AT has just starved himself. So I feel like 2 weeks is pretty significant.

They get flake and sometimes crumbles from my girlfriend in the mornings when she remembers, plus any combo of three kinds of pellets, frozen brine shrimp, frozen blood worm, etc at night, and he sees 10 other fish excitedly eating them all, so he really should know better. He's already watching them enjoy the rest. Last time I put in feeders (2 weeks ago) he ate at least 6 of the 12 in the first minute. So it's almost like he's saving up and trying to wait me out. I feel like if I do feeders again now he's going to feel like he has won and then never eat the other stuff.

I don't know why he doesn't; it's all delicious. All the other fish love it. And the IT begs.

There is one danio that is smaller than the other two, he could probably get him now. But I haven't seen any aggression or stalking. I wasn't awake to see whatever she saw earlier. I'm just going to keep an eye on him in that regard. The danios are top dwellers so he's rarely anywhere near them.

 

[TCZeli]

That is a good size, and he will be able to go a while without food. My advise would be to keep doing what your doing for right now, and watch the Danios.