Few questions on Arapaima.

  • We are currently upgrading MFK. thanks! -neo
How much longer should I be feeding my Pima with live food until trying to switch to processed foods by starvation?
 
Perhaps let it run out of live food and offer it preserved food without starvation, just to see if it'll eat? It might take bloodworms or krill if they're added into the current so that the food swirls around.
 
Betta132 said:
Perhaps let it run out of live food and offer it preserved food without starvation, just to see if it'll eat? It might take bloodworms or krill if they're added into the current so that the food swirls around.
Click to expand...
Ok! Will do! I'm trying to feed with Hikari Food Sticks for processed food. I was also thinking about buying some white meat fish at the supermarket and and cut it finely in hopes it attacks them and likes them!
 
You can also try feeding him from a pair of long tweezers. Maybe offer him live ghost shrimp from the tweezers, then freshly dead shrimp or krill, then frozen? He'll probably get the idea pretty quickly if you wiggle the food around to make it interesting.
 
Ok, so frozen hasn't helped that much, I stopped feeding with livebearers and am now feeding small tilapia juvs which give the pima a nice big belly :) I'm still offering food sticks once a day, the pima attacks them but after a few seconds spits them back, it's really frustrating. The good thing is I have a pretty much unlimited source of tilapia juveniles ATM so I'm not worried about the pima starving, but I'm really worried about not being able to make it eat something that's not live fish.

Any recommendations?
 
Try soaking the sticks beforehand to soften them and seeing if he'll swallow them. If not, soak them in juices from frozen food and give that a try. If he's at least biting them, that's good.
 
  • Like
Reactions: MHDevelopments
Chop up some of the tilapia and soak the good sticks in the juices, persist with the foodsticks, ultimately it will eat one, then 2, and so on. Hikari foodsticks ime are the best to get Arowana to eat dry food, I'm sure it will work for pima's too
 
Betta132 said:
Try soaking the sticks beforehand to soften them and seeing if he'll swallow them. If not, soak them in juices from frozen food and give that a try. If he's at least biting them, that's good.
Click to expand...

jwh said:
Chop up some of the tilapia and soak the good sticks in the juices, persist with the foodsticks, ultimately it will eat one, then 2, and so on. Hikari foodsticks ime are the best to get Arowana to eat dry food, I'm sure it will work for pima's too
Click to expand...

Thanks you two for the advice! I got excellent news! Today the Pima ate food sticks for the first time! After several weeks of offering sticks daily it finally grabbed one and chew it and then swallowed it whole giving it a nice round belly :) This is a huge step guys! I'll keep you updated!

Here's a short video I managed to take. I'll add one where you can actually see the Pima taking the stick from the surface.

Cheers!

 
Betta132 said:
Awesome!
Do you know if one that size has the crushing plates yet?
Click to expand...

I guess you're talking 'bout the bony tongue and the bony roof of the mouth which they use to crush their preys! In that case I think it already have them.

The arapaima is now eating food sticks as staple food in its diet. Thanks to this it has been gaining some weight pretty fast and is now looking more like a miniature version of a huge arapaima rather than an earthworm as it looked before.

I'll be taking some pictures as soon as I can so you guys can see some updates!

Cheers!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
MonsterFishKeepers.com
Top Bottom