So, excuse the length here, I feel it is necessary to have the backstory to accurately describe what is happening now.
I have had this little guy for close to 2 months. He came in as a wild caught peruvian motoro male, around 5-6". He was extremely malnourished, had severe ammonia burn on his belly, and was not wanting to eat any food. As a recommendation on wild caught rays, I treated with Prazi for 2 rounds, I would guess around 8 days of it being in the tank before doing daily water changes to remove it and clearing the rest with carbon.
It took me about 2-3 days before I finally got him eating chopped red worms. I started him slow with 1 or 2 worms chopped 3x a day and he was eating them but not what I would call "aggressively". Over the following 2-3 weeks, I slowly upped his daily worm intake to where he was eating 10+ worms per day, at the same time I was putting in Ghost Shrimp here and there and he was actively hunting them down and readily eating the worms as soon as the hit the bottom of the tank. Around the beginning of June I stopped giving Ghost Shrimp and tried some finely chopped, fresh market shrimp mixed in with chopped worms just to see if I could sneak them in. No bueno, he picked the worms out and left the shrimp for me to scoop out a few hours later.
So I put the market shrimp in the freezer for later and moved on to chopped frozen krill. This time around I skipped the mixing with worms part and put them straight in, he ignored them. I left them in for a few hours and removed them after he hadn't touched them. Not to be defeated by this dumb foolery I was consistent, but this time I feed WHOLE krill instead. At this point, I had already stopped chopping his worms and was just tossing them in whole and letting him figure it out, he can't expect to be babied the rest of his life, right? I have 3" tetras that will take on an adult red worm, he needed to man up! This time around he was interested and actually ate them, all of them actually and seemed to enjoy them. Fast forward 3 weeks later, we have been alternating meals of krill and red worms and/or chopped night-crawlers.
Also, I have tried to toss a few Hikari massivore and carnivore pellets in from time to time, he swims over investigates and leaves them be. About a week ago, I started back at the attempt of getting him to eat finely chopped tilapia and/or market shrimp. Both times mixed with krill or red worms. Now, however, he ignores ALL of it. Just leaves all of it floating around, will swim over to it but never actually eats it. He went Friday and Saturday without eating, and finally today he took 3 larger chopped red worms. He ignored straight krill, market shrimp, tilapia, and pellets. I fed the larger worms earlier in the day and after dinner I chopped another 3 worms and put in there, came back 3 hours later and he hadn't touched them.
Have I been too actively changing food? Do I need to stick with just worms and try to work krill back in, does he need to fast for a while?
The current tank parameters are:
81.5degrees
7.4pH
0 ammonia
0 nitrite
10 nitrate
No tankmates and is still living in his 110 gallon stock tank. I have my acrylic getting ordered for my 480 gallon tank, since my 210 gallon sprung a leak on me.
Last water change was Friday, changed around 60%.
I believe my nitrates have been higher as of late because I have been leaving the food in longer than usual. I have had a crazy couple of weeks with an off schedule at work and was hoping maybe he had gotten use to the scheduled feedings and I had thrown him off. Doesn't seem to be the case though.
Any ideas on why he might be acting funny all of the sudden? I am hoping to get my new tank built by the end of July and get him moved shortly after. I am hoping to get him a friend in the months that follow, but that will not be in the immediate future and more towards Oct/Nov if I had to guess and I would like to have him relaxed and aggressively eating a variety of things before that.
Also, I was hoping to bulk him up this week, as I am leaving on Friday and will not be back until Monday, so was hoping he could have a good week of eating. It appears as though he has different plans.
I have had this little guy for close to 2 months. He came in as a wild caught peruvian motoro male, around 5-6". He was extremely malnourished, had severe ammonia burn on his belly, and was not wanting to eat any food. As a recommendation on wild caught rays, I treated with Prazi for 2 rounds, I would guess around 8 days of it being in the tank before doing daily water changes to remove it and clearing the rest with carbon.
It took me about 2-3 days before I finally got him eating chopped red worms. I started him slow with 1 or 2 worms chopped 3x a day and he was eating them but not what I would call "aggressively". Over the following 2-3 weeks, I slowly upped his daily worm intake to where he was eating 10+ worms per day, at the same time I was putting in Ghost Shrimp here and there and he was actively hunting them down and readily eating the worms as soon as the hit the bottom of the tank. Around the beginning of June I stopped giving Ghost Shrimp and tried some finely chopped, fresh market shrimp mixed in with chopped worms just to see if I could sneak them in. No bueno, he picked the worms out and left the shrimp for me to scoop out a few hours later.
So I put the market shrimp in the freezer for later and moved on to chopped frozen krill. This time around I skipped the mixing with worms part and put them straight in, he ignored them. I left them in for a few hours and removed them after he hadn't touched them. Not to be defeated by this dumb foolery I was consistent, but this time I feed WHOLE krill instead. At this point, I had already stopped chopping his worms and was just tossing them in whole and letting him figure it out, he can't expect to be babied the rest of his life, right? I have 3" tetras that will take on an adult red worm, he needed to man up! This time around he was interested and actually ate them, all of them actually and seemed to enjoy them. Fast forward 3 weeks later, we have been alternating meals of krill and red worms and/or chopped night-crawlers.
Also, I have tried to toss a few Hikari massivore and carnivore pellets in from time to time, he swims over investigates and leaves them be. About a week ago, I started back at the attempt of getting him to eat finely chopped tilapia and/or market shrimp. Both times mixed with krill or red worms. Now, however, he ignores ALL of it. Just leaves all of it floating around, will swim over to it but never actually eats it. He went Friday and Saturday without eating, and finally today he took 3 larger chopped red worms. He ignored straight krill, market shrimp, tilapia, and pellets. I fed the larger worms earlier in the day and after dinner I chopped another 3 worms and put in there, came back 3 hours later and he hadn't touched them.
Have I been too actively changing food? Do I need to stick with just worms and try to work krill back in, does he need to fast for a while?
The current tank parameters are:
81.5degrees
7.4pH
0 ammonia
0 nitrite
10 nitrate
No tankmates and is still living in his 110 gallon stock tank. I have my acrylic getting ordered for my 480 gallon tank, since my 210 gallon sprung a leak on me.
Last water change was Friday, changed around 60%.
I believe my nitrates have been higher as of late because I have been leaving the food in longer than usual. I have had a crazy couple of weeks with an off schedule at work and was hoping maybe he had gotten use to the scheduled feedings and I had thrown him off. Doesn't seem to be the case though.
Any ideas on why he might be acting funny all of the sudden? I am hoping to get my new tank built by the end of July and get him moved shortly after. I am hoping to get him a friend in the months that follow, but that will not be in the immediate future and more towards Oct/Nov if I had to guess and I would like to have him relaxed and aggressively eating a variety of things before that.
Also, I was hoping to bulk him up this week, as I am leaving on Friday and will not be back until Monday, so was hoping he could have a good week of eating. It appears as though he has different plans.