Good catch and dont worry about it going dark and unstable.They do it at will and nothing can really change that.Focus on getting it to eat pellets,break the massivore into smaller pieces if you have to.
Purchasing a new tiger datnoid
- Thread starter rayoddballfish
- Start date
Morning Update: hope everyone is having a great start to the morning! The datnoid is doing decent and has gotten more of his colors back. He seems to be surfing the glass a lot (maybe cause he sees his reflection?). I have the temp at around 80 degrees is this too high? Also in quarantine any meds I should use? All I’m doing rn is just monitoring its behavior and added no salts or general cure yet.
Update Today: last night I have the datnoid some food and it went after a piece of shrimp (and ate it) but ignored the massivores. I will continue this week and see if I can get him on pellets! Any advice y’all have with weening them off frozen food let me know!
Seems to be pot luck. I am hoping they will get more accepting as they put on size. I am growing out Dats that I got when they were about 2", with my largest ones now about 4.5-5". I have two that eat sinking Hikari carnivore, one of which hammers them. He'll eat 10+ while the frozen food is thawing. He's had a good growth spurt, and gotten thicker. New tank boss. But the rest will still just eat frozen mysis and bloodworms. All doing well, and one of them is almost as large as the pellet crusher.
I have diced up frozen shrimp and talapia, and I have even crushed fresh garlic cloves and soaked the defrosting food with it. They haven't taken to it. They occasionally nip some shrimp pellets, sometimes they will take freeze dried baby shrimp. Bug bites don't seem to entice them. They haven't touched any Hikari floating sticks, or mini pellets.
I am up in the air as to feeding them live food. I do have a Platy tank, and a bunch of mosquito fish that I have had for over a month, so these are plenty healthy. I just don't think I could sustain a feeder colony unless I am willing to scale it up to a more serious level. Like rolling though 2-3 stock tanks steady. The mosquito fish come in with a high mortality rate, and I have had even worse luck with freshwater scuds.
I had one small dat that would not eat at all for 2 weeks or more. It was very lethargic, looking near death. I didn't want to lose the little guy so popped him into a planted 40B with Platties, and he couldn't catch the fry the first few hours. By morning he had perked up considerably, as he must have had an easier time hunting at night. Anyway, he got healthy, starting eating bloodworms like the rest, but he decimated the Platy tank pretty quick. It is just now coming back with numerous fry.
Also thinking about a worm farm set up. I guess red wigglers aren't too big, and can be used as a supplement in a predators diet. But I would hate to get that set up, and then they don't eat them. I am not a gardener.
Hey thanks for the lengthy reply. I hope your datnoids start to eat prepared foods lol. I think i did get lucky. Today he took a few pieces of the massivores and ate them so I’m confident in the coming days he’ll be more willing to eat it. I find if i add the pellet near the filter (HOB) or throw it in hard, the movement causes the datnoids to start to hunt for it and take a bite. I did request the seller to send me his best eating datnoid so maybe that’s why lol. Either way good luck! I was able to train my polypterus lapradei to go from live feeder fish (what the lfs was feeding them) to massivores by starving it for months. Also surprisingly I find massivores are more appealing than shrimp or tilapia since it has a really strong scent! Could you send some pics of the dats? Would love to see your little babies lol
Another Update! Datnoid is looking good and as the impatient person I am, did a water change on my display tank and added him to it after only a week of quarantine. Hopefully nothing spreads but I’ll take the consequences if anything bad does happen ??. Here are pics of the tank!
Yep! He looks super happy especially since he interacts with the plants and the other inhabitants. Hopefully when I feed the tank he can access the food since the angelfish are like little piranhas when it comes to food.
