Ornates avoiding Talapia

[JuniorMonsterKeeper]

Over the last week or so I ve noticed that my ornate bichirs are swimming away from the talapia I’m providing for them. My endlicheri is eating and has no issues. My senegalus will eat a few peices and then eventually avoid me trying to give him any more so I take it as a sign of being full. However my 2 ornates will run off very quickly if they see me reaching toward them with the talapia. I use a turkey baster to hold the talapia and either drop in front of them or let them snag it from the tip. Is it possible that the cichlid gold pellets in which they ve been eating is all that they want now ? As I know the talapia is fresh as I bought it literally a few hours before trying to feed them. I ve decided to try and starve them for a few days but will b a risky decision as I have some juvenile demasoni and peacocks in this tsnk in which they could potentially eat. Has anyone ever delt with this ?

 

[Rocksor]

Looks like they are afraid of the baster if you did not use that to feed the pellets to them prior.

 

[JuniorMonsterKeeper]

Looks like they are afraid of the baster if you did not use that to feed the pellets to them prior.

I used the baster whenever I fed them talapia but perhaps you are right I ll try a wooden skewer and see how they respond. It’s concerning me because I lost 2 juvenile cichlids this weekend and although I believe the culprit is my endlicheri I can’t doubt that it could also be one or both my ornates. If that doesn’t work I ll section off a corner of my tank with a divider and drop the talapia in where my cichlids can’t get to them

 

[JuniorMonsterKeeper]

Update on situation. I tried using a wooden skewer and they ran away so then I tried to use my fingers and they ran. So in frustration I just dropped the talapia into the tank and to my surprise after seeming as though I wasn’t watching the tank I saw my ornates scarfing down the talapia. So they have been eating simply not in front of me and won’t accept it passed to them. Which is leading me to now believe the duo may have been responsible for more of my eaten juvenile cichlids than I first thought. They were always fairly aggressive From I started stocking this tank so it makes sense they d prefer to grab their food when they felt like it versus me shoving it in their face so to speak. So all is well that ends well. I will leave the talapia in til I wake up in the morning and since I ll be leaving it in the tank for longer periods than I usually did I ll be doing 2 water changes a week.

 

[tlindsey]

Update on situation. I tried using a wooden skewer and they ran away so then I tried to use my fingers and they ran. So in frustration I just dropped the talapia into the tank and to my surprise after seeming as though I wasn’t watching the tank I saw my ornates scarfing down the talapia. So they have been eating simply not in front of me and won’t accept it passed to them. Which is leading me to now believe the duo may have been responsible for more of my eaten juvenile cichlids than I first thought. They were always fairly aggressive From I started stocking this tank so it makes sense they d prefer to grab their food when they felt like it versus me shoving it in their face so to speak. So all is well that ends well. I will leave the talapia in til I wake up in the morning and since I ll be leaving it in the tank for longer periods than I usually did I ll be doing 2 water changes a week.

Happy to hear that the Tilapia probably will be gone in the morning lol.

 

[JuniorMonsterKeeper]

Happy to hear that the Tilapia probably will be gone in the morning lol.

I hope so but I do usually find bits and pieces in weird crevices and since I’m leaving more than usual I’m sure there will b more shredded smaller pieces in the spaces between the rocks.

 

[duanes]

When fish eat fish, they normally swallow the whole thing. In this way predators get complete nutrition, from bones, organs, scales, skin, what is in the prey's digestive system.
By feeding fillets they do "not" get all those things, fillets are only the muscle tissue, and an incomplete source of nutrients.
Good commercial pellets have all those good things, so once trained to eat pellets, the fish may intuitively realize what is best for them, by instinct.

 

[JuniorMonsterKeeper]

Yes I understand that a healthy whole live fish is more nutritious thanks. However my issue was that as they got bigger the portions they required needed to increase and it’s difficult to feed pellets 100% of the time in the right amounts with greedy cichlids swooping in and that would fill them enough to keep them from feeding on my fish during lights out periods. The talapia serves more as a filler for me in their diet more than anything.

I ve already removed the remaining peices from the tank this morning I ll be doin my quick stock count shortly to see if there were any casualties through the night. My bichirs are the trophies in my tank hands down so I don’t get extremely upset when a fish goes missing but it is frustrating because it’s always newer fish that get eaten.

 

[Boomer1224]

how did things work out?

 

[JuniorMonsterKeeper]

how did things work out?

They ate most of the talapia only had to remove 3 peices this morning (I put quite a bit in for the 4 that I have). All my fish are still accounted for so overall a great night.

Have a lot of work to do today in the tank as well so glad I don’t need to worry about the feeding issue anymore. Have to remove stones give them a scrub to remove the brown algae, stir the sand , vacuum and clean glass as I was suffering from diatom brown algae due to silicate release from my Tahitian moon black sand (this will probably be one of the last times I ll need to do it to really address this issue as the growth rate has slowed down to a crawl. The growth I had in a day in the beginning was 4 times as bad compared to what it is now. 1 days growth then was equal to about 3 weeks growth now) I ve gotta rescape the stones and break up the established mbuna territories and then settup my new jebao auto doser As I’m really trying to get plants to grow in this tank and it’s been difficult and I don’t eanna have to do extra work remembering supplement dosing. As well as shop for a lighting upgrade as my marine land advanced pro isn’t sufficient enough for this 125. So all in all a lot to do. But happy work !