Trying to get my fish onto Hikari Carnisticks

[mattstevens1]

So in my tank I have....
1x Australian Jardini Arowana
1x Alligator Gar
2x Red bellied Pacus
1x Pleco
1x Oscar

Now for the most part there diets consist of minows/goldfish. the Oscar and pleco will eat pellets. I'll feed them the occasional frozen mouse and some other frozen foods and i'll even throw in peanuts/vegies for the pacus. but the gar seems to only eat ghost shrimp/sometimes minows and the arowana will eat nothing but live food. Ive been trying to get them onto the Carnisticks but they seem to just kind of look at them in confusion. I read somewhere to try soaking the sticks in some sort of "meat liquid" or whatever you would want to call it and to slowly adjust them to the carnisticks. now is there something better to feed my guys other then the sticks or a better way to get them to eat the sticks? thank you

 

[ijalabdullah]

The 'hunger' methods works for me. When I first trained my fishes to eat pellets, just like u're encountering, they refused to eat and just look at it. So after noticing they did not eat them, I removed the pellets and did nt replace with anything.

I keep doing this till they're so hungry and one fine day, they will end up consuming the pellets. At first they'll still be reluctant to eat them but once they've adapted to them, as like now, they're fighting for the pellets.

Hope this method works for u too..

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[Dionysus]

I never was able to get my 20" Florida gar onto pellets, but hav had success getting a silver aro I once owned to eat floating pellets, and my Datnoids to eat Hikari Massivore. Just quit feeding for a week. Also put pellets in current flow, which caught fish attention. My gar used to only eat live food, but eventually would hand feed frozen silversides.

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[ijalabdullah]

Same goes for my Alligator Gar.. he is the longest one to make him adapt to pellets. But he finally learns to eat them. Occasionally I'll still hand feed him some market prawns..

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