Red Devil not letting anyone else eat.

[DanSmelko89]

I have my 12 inch red devil, 8 inch blue Texas, 7 inch Jag, and 5-6 inch dovii in my 180. No real aggression problems yet, however my Fatboy red devil eats everything I put into tank. I'm lucky if the other fish get one pellet. I've tried feeding at different locations, and feeding my red devil first. What can I do different to get food to my other fish?

 

[newworld]

Besides that the fish was eventually outgrow the tank the Carpintis is the odd man out meaning the others will be more aggressive…

 

[Rocksor]

Not much else you can do but physically separate it. It's demonstrating that it's the tank boss

 

[The Masked Shadow]

Cichlids have a social class. The king of the tank gets to eat.

 

[DirtyPaws949]

Is the RD just eating all the food? Or chasing the other fish away from it?
For my piggy-fish, I’ve been successful with meatier foods— they fill up the mouth and gullet (idk fish equivalent to that) faster and more effectively than concentrated pellets which expand later in the body.
the other fish get to eat while the piggies are all, “aww man, I can’t fit anything else”.
My favorites are crickets and mealworms and roaches (you can “gut load” them with whatever food you want the fish to be eating), but shrimps and frozen fish work well, too (but more expensive).
For large fish, setting up a roach colony might be a beneficial, money-saving option, and is relatively simple. Some of my larger species of cockroaches get 2.5” and are meaty AF. Feed off the males, and the colony just keeps producing for you.

 

[Randles]

I had this problem with my Oscars. One of them was seriously fast at eating ang grabbing all the food for himself, greedy git! What I had to do is feed them at opposite ends of the tank. This worked but you still had to be on the ball as he would try and quickly eat his and sprint to the other side to steal more. Its a bit of a battle but much easier to do with meatier foods as previously suggested. I had really good success with worms (nightcrawlers in the US) as I could use tongs for each side of the tank and "tease" greedy boy to keep him interested until the others had eaten well. They absolutely LOVE the worms too and you can get a colony going really easy rather than digging them up.

 

[Krismo962]

You could distract him at one end of the tank and drop in food for the others on the opposite end.

 

[phreeflow]

The meaty food thing worked for me as well. A big chunk of tilapia for the rd to chew on while you throw in food for the others might do the trick. However, when I did have an oscar, it shocked me how it somehow always found room for another morsel of food no matter how stuffed its mouth was.

 

[duanes]

Besides that the fish was eventually outgrow the tank the Carpintis is the odd man out meaning the others will be more aggressive…

Agree, I have a 180, and would not dream of trying to keep all those species togther in it.
It is maybe large enough for a trio of red devils, or....an adult pair of carpintus, or,..... 1 adult pair of managuense, or......a single half grown dovii, as even 1 dovii will out grow the tank.

 

[FINWIN]

LOL you've got a Game of Thrones there.