I just aqcuired a 13 inch male marmorata from george at shark aquarium.. since this guy has been in my possession his eating habits are undesireable at best. Before fasting him to switch to prepared foods I wanted to fatten him a bit with live QT feeders. All he does is kill them and out of two feedings of 25 he has maybe eaten 5. All my water params are good and he does normal pike things besides gorge. Any one have any suggestions as to what I might do to coax him to feed?
Wild Marm not eating..
- Thread starter cepon3
- Start date
Let him settle a bit, mature fish take longer to acclimatize to new tanks. Do you know what he was being fed at the store? How long was he there?
I was thinking he may just need time to settle in lol.. I have cartons of night crawlers for this guy and then krill and massivore for when I get him onto that sort of thing.. I have experience with pikes but not with one this large that's why I'm aaskin for the help..
He also from time to time rubs up against the gravel.. is this normal.. I've seen him do this maybe once or twice a day since I've had him..
He also from time to time rubs up against the gravel.. is this normal.. I've seen him do this maybe once or twice a day since I've had him..
BigPic;3681212; said:
I beleve he was beeing fed live. That's the reason I wanted to continue that so that he's not stressed from the move and then starved..
was this the marm from the pair. what happened to the female george had? or did he get a new shipment in?
ive had times where my pikes would kill the feeders, eat maybe half of it and spit them out. if he's at least eaten some then thats a good start.
how good are your water parameters. i had moved to an apartment for a year and the water i had just was not right. pH was around 7.6 and the water was pretty hard. lost 3 pikes, before i came to the conclusion that i needed softer more acidic water. its the only time i really struggled with keeping my pikes healthy.
also, the big pikes wont starve that quickly. but if they arent eating its reason for concern. the scratching on the belly could be a sign of some sort of disease that iritating its skin. ive scene healthy fish do it as well. just give it a good check to make sure theres no odd growths.
ive had times where my pikes would kill the feeders, eat maybe half of it and spit them out. if he's at least eaten some then thats a good start.
how good are your water parameters. i had moved to an apartment for a year and the water i had just was not right. pH was around 7.6 and the water was pretty hard. lost 3 pikes, before i came to the conclusion that i needed softer more acidic water. its the only time i really struggled with keeping my pikes healthy.
also, the big pikes wont starve that quickly. but if they arent eating its reason for concern. the scratching on the belly could be a sign of some sort of disease that iritating its skin. ive scene healthy fish do it as well. just give it a good check to make sure theres no odd growths.
I'm not so sure that eating the half feeder is anything more than the feeders body being too hard. My lents wouldn't eat whole feeders until I gave them swordtails. They would hunt the minnows and goldfish really well, but, only grind up the head and spit the rest. I don't think that the livebearers are as bony as other "feeder" type fish. Just my 0.02.
Ph isn't as much of a concern as lots of people think, only when it comes time to spawn them. My Pikes ALL live in my tap water, pH about 8.0, I don't really have issues with HITH or any other things attributed to hard or high pH water. There have been times when I had to mix RO into my water to trigger/raise a spawn, but everyday maintenace is never an issue.
Ray
Ph isn't as much of a concern as lots of people think, only when it comes time to spawn them. My Pikes ALL live in my tap water, pH about 8.0, I don't really have issues with HITH or any other things attributed to hard or high pH water. There have been times when I had to mix RO into my water to trigger/raise a spawn, but everyday maintenace is never an issue.
Ray
Yes this is the male from the pair. The female is at a friends house. After beeingin the tank together at a friends house after the move the male wasn't to pleased with the female..its_an_obsession;3681586; said:
He began smashing her off the glass and instead of risking either one of these beautiful fish, my friend asked me if I wanted this guy for a solo tank.. I eagerly said yes and picked this guy up..
BigPic;3681724; said:
maybe its not so much the pH but the high hardness. i know they usually are correlated but not always. that was the only thing i could think of being the reason for the troubles i had keeping pikes in that one location. i supposed there could have been soemthing else in the water that i didnt test for.
thats to bad the pair didnt get along well. they always seemed fine in the store. but at least you got a sweet marm from the deal
So I decided that since I'm not 100 percent sure that this fish was treated for parasites since his original shipment from brazil I am going to treat him with a half dose of an internal parasite killer.. something seems a little off to me. He shows no sign of any external parasites. Not so much as a blemish on his very close to perfect shape body. But he is a very dark fish, showing very little of that trademark marmorata beauty. And since I've noticed him rubbing on more then one occassion I figure this can't hurt.. ill keep you guys updated on his progress..