Switching from live

  • We are currently upgrading MFK. thanks! -neo
djaalix said:
I disagree ... sometimes a small tank can hurt, but it can also leave no room for fish to form a territory .... its impossible to defend a territory if while you chase 1 off 3 others come in ... its been shown that confined space with lots of fish can actually help aggression, but wont help water quality ... who knows which will happen until you try I guess ... I started with a 40 gallon breeder, and didnt see aggression until they went into the 220 .... whether 5 fish is enough to reduce aggression in payara, or at least reduce the chance of them ganging up on 1, I dont know ... I have never noticed my vampires get so aggressive toward eachother, or anyone else, that they cause serious harm ... just nudge out of the way ... others have had more brutal stories, so it comes down to try it, watch closely, and if things get ugly have a back up plan set

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Didn't work quite as well for me. I had a pile of bichirs and a wolffish in a smaller tank and all my wolf did was chase my bichirs around. i guess it varies from fish and personality.
 
Instead of starting a new thread, I decided to just continue from my old one. So...

I tried starving them, but after a few days, the larger armatus started beating up everyone else, no missing eyes thank goodness, so I gave in and started feeding live again. Well, the arms are big enough, hopefully, to go with the bichirs in the 150 so I'm going to move them in this next weekend. So my question is, I hear a lot of you guys starving your payaras for weeks to get them off of live, so when you starve, are you literally not feeding them for those weeks or are you attempting to feed every few days and it just always ends up turning into weeks?
 
Aw3s0m3 said:
Instead of starting a new thread, I decided to just continue from my old one. So...

I tried starving them, but after a few days, the larger armatus started beating up everyone else, no missing eyes thank goodness, so I gave in and started feeding live again. Well, the arms are big enough, hopefully, to go with the bichirs in the 150 so I'm going to move them in this next weekend. So my question is, I hear a lot of you guys starving your payaras for weeks to get them off of live, so when you starve, are you literally not feeding them for those weeks or are you attempting to feed every few days and it just always ends up turning into weeks?
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For me, its feed the tank as usual and if they want to eat, they eat what I offer.

I've had a couple stubborn payaras that had to be taught how to eat dead food by using the jigging method, but once they reliably ate dead food another starvation period would always put them onto pellets.
 
Starving is starving lol..If you give in and feed them what they are used to eating too soon then it hinders the process....It's been a while but I don't remember having to hold out for too long in training any of my payara.I started with freeze dried krill which they soon learned to snatch from the surface....then a week later I dropped in raw shrimp and thereafter, tilapia.
 
I've never tried the jiggle tactic so I can't speak on that but the thing with starving is to give them something,a live morsel,if they hold out and get dangerously thin and then get back onto the fast.
 
Don't give them anything for a week and then try and see if they won't take what you offer.
 
I'll start doing that this weekend since I'm moving. Is it considered moving them to a new environment if they're just going to a different house but staying in the same tank? I heard its easier to switch them when they move into a new environment. I'm just asking cuz even though both armatus are going into a 150g, the scombs are staying in their 40b.


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I just thought I'd update with my efforts. It's been a little over a week since I started starving these guys and so far, only a scomb has grabbed and actually eaten a tilapia fillet. The armies will swim up to it looking like they will attack but rarely do. When they do, they spit it right out. I figure it'll be pretty soon before one of the armies actually eats it. I have a problem though, if I do this during the day, they won't even look at it. I have to do it at night and turn off the lights. How can I get them to try for it without the lights off? I can see that becoming a huge hassle later on because I've been using the jigging method. If I just drop it, they don't even look at it.


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