Fish not eating anything I feed them

[Jacob._.merc]

Try feeding some hex shield and monitor their poop. Can try the garlic and even bloodworm juice mixed with foods may help entice the fish to bite.

I’ll see if my lfs has any of that hex shield stuff.

 

[Cabie]

I actually give them that as a treat. they tear those up all the time. I just don’t like spending 10 dollars on something that isn’t going to last long. But they do eat that right away

There's one thing that worked to make my picky green terror eat pellets. I crushed the pellets into a powder and turned them into gel food with unflavoured Knox Gelatin. It took him a few days to fully accept it, and once he was eating that, I started reducing the amount of gelatin to slowly get him used to harder food. Eventually, I stopped crushing the pellets and just added enough gelatin to hold them together. He would eat that, but he was making such a mess when he ate (sending dust out of his gills) that I decided to give up on that and keep him on Omega One's frozen formulas. If I had decided to keep it up, the next step would have been to break up the pellet gel into individual pellets, and then eventually to give him normal pellets. But my fish was alone in his tank, so there was no one else to eat the food particles he was sending everywhere while I was getting him used to the food, so that's why I decided to give up. But if you have other fish in the tank to help clean up the mess while you're getting them used to the food, that method might work for you.

Yeah I get that. I’ve had most Of these guys for about 5 years and never had a problem before. They are just being spoiled all of a sudden. we all enjoy seeing our fish eat

If the fish used to like pellets and then suddenly started refusing them, I would suspect internal parasites. My green terror had capillaria worms. He stopped eating pellets first, but still ate frozen food with appetite for at least a month before he started spitting that out too. I would strongly recommend examining their feces with a microscope.

By the way, Hex-Shield is medicated pellets. So if your fish are spitting out pellets, they will spit that out too. To give medicated food to my green terror, I made gel food with bloodworms instead of medicated pellets.

Have you checked your ammonia, nitrite and nitrates levels?

 

[Jacob._.merc]

There's one thing that worked to make my picky green terror eat pellets. I crushed the pellets into a powder and turned them into gel food with unflavoured Knox Gelatin. It took him a few days to fully accept it, and once he was eating that, I started reducing the amount of gelatin to slowly get him used to harder food. Eventually, I stopped crushing the pellets and just added enough gelatin to hold them together. He would eat that, but he was making such a mess when he ate (sending dust out of his gills) that I decided to give up on that and keep him on Omega One's frozen formulas. If I had decided to keep it up, the next step would have been to break up the pellet gel into individual pellets, and then eventually to give him normal pellets. But my fish was alone in his tank, so there was no one else to eat the food particles he was sending everywhere while I was getting him used to the food, so that's why I decided to give up. But if you have other fish in the tank to help clean up the mess while you're getting them used to the food, that method might work for you.



If the fish used to like pellets and then suddenly started refusing them, I would suspect internal parasites. My green terror had capillaria worms. He stopped eating pellets first, but still ate frozen food with appetite for at least a month before he started spitting that out too. I would strongly recommend examining their feces with a microscope.

By the way, Hex-Shield is medicated pellets. So if your fish are spitting out pellets, they will spit that out too. To give medicated food to my green terror, I made gel food with bloodworms instead of medicated pellets.

Have you checked your ammonia, nitrite and nitrates levels?

I fed them those Omega one cichlid formula cubes twice today and they all ate them. What I meant by they don't eat the pellets is they don't eat THESE pellets that I am feeding them right now. I am thinking they are just very picky about what they eat. I put in some shrimp last night and when I woke up it was all gone so someone ate them.

 

[Jacob._.merc]

These are the fish I stress about the most. Doesn't the Fossorochromis look really skinny on his head? I've never seen one look like this. It was like that when I purchased it. The other is the Copadichromis, I never see him eat but he looks like he eats as he's got a belly going on for him. Although he has lost his beautiful coloration withing the past week. He just had ich so I had to treat him for that, and that has completely passed.

 

[Jacob._.merc]

These are the fish I stress about the most. Doesn't the Fossorochromis look really skinny on his head? I've never seen one look like this. It was like that when I purchased it. The other is the Copadichromis, I never see him eat but he looks like he eats as he's got a belly going on for him. Although he has lost his beautiful coloration withing the past week. He just had ich so I had to treat him for that, and that has completely passed.

View attachment 1395502

View attachment 1395503

Do you notice the dips in their stomach? Is that normal?

 

[Jacob._.merc]

There's one thing that worked to make my picky green terror eat pellets. I crushed the pellets into a powder and turned them into gel food with unflavoured Knox Gelatin. It took him a few days to fully accept it, and once he was eating that, I started reducing the amount of gelatin to slowly get him used to harder food. Eventually, I stopped crushing the pellets and just added enough gelatin to hold them together. He would eat that, but he was making such a mess when he ate (sending dust out of his gills) that I decided to give up on that and keep him on Omega One's frozen formulas. If I had decided to keep it up, the next step would have been to break up the pellet gel into individual pellets, and then eventually to give him normal pellets. But my fish was alone in his tank, so there was no one else to eat the food particles he was sending everywhere while I was getting him used to the food, so that's why I decided to give up. But if you have other fish in the tank to help clean up the mess while you're getting them used to the food, that method might work for you.



If the fish used to like pellets and then suddenly started refusing them, I would suspect internal parasites. My green terror had capillaria worms. He stopped eating pellets first, but still ate frozen food with appetite for at least a month before he started spitting that out too. I would strongly recommend examining their feces with a microscope.

By the way, Hex-Shield is medicated pellets. So if your fish are spitting out pellets, they will spit that out too. To give medicated food to my green terror, I made gel food with bloodworms instead of medicated pellets.

Have you checked your ammonia, nitrite and nitrates levels?

I have a microscope, I'll see if I can see anything. And no, I've never really checked nitrates or anything like that before.

 

[Matteus]

The water ph is at 7-8. Temp is always between 78 and 82 and I change the water 50% every other day

What about ammonia, nitrite, nitrate?

 

[Jacob._.merc]

What about ammonia, nitrite, nitrate?

I'm not sure about any of that. I've never checked those before

 

[Matteus]

Good to know, you may want to grab a kit. Your wc schedule is pretty awesome from what you are telling us. But even with that, you may want to check just to be sure

I worked at a pet store briefly and a customer came in with a water sample from a tank that his fish started dying and he had a very similar wc schedule as you. Planted tank and all the right things. Tested his water and nitrates were through the roof. Test was almost blood red.