Jaguar cichlid not eating

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TakkerDada

TakkerDada

Plecostomus
MFK Member
Apr 21, 2020
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So I have a pair of jags, which I recently separated cause I was getting annoyed of all the digging and moving the rocks and sand around. The male jag was also being aggressive towards the female. So I moved the female to another tank and ever since that day the male isn’t been eating properly. He used to bang himself against the glass earlier during feeding time but now he doesn’t care much during the feeding time he won’t even come on top. I put feeders the other day (quarantined) and he ate them but while feeding pellets he just doesn’t care. The female is doing well though. Should I be concerned about this? Will he start eating again with time? I don’t want to feed him live fish everyday cause I’m sacred he might get hooked to it and stop accepting pellets at all. He is alone in a 75g right now. I do 50% water change every week, I try to stay at the top with the water levels. Any solution to this situation?
 
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TakkerDada said:
So I have a pair of jags, which I recently separated cause I was getting annoyed of all the digging and moving the rocks and sand around. The male jag was also being aggressive towards the female. So I moved the female to another tank and ever since that day the male isn’t been eating properly. He used to bang himself against the glass earlier during feeding time but now he doesn’t care much during the feeding time he won’t even come on top. I put feeders the other day (quarantined) and he ate them but while feeding pellets he just doesn’t care. The female is doing well though. Should I be concerned about this? Will he start eating again with time? I don’t want to feed him live fish everyday cause I’m sacred he might get hooked to it and stop accepting pellets at all. He is alone in a 75g right now. I do 50% water change every week, I try to stay at the top with the water levels. Any solution to this situation?
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The male will refuse to eat pellets as long as live feeders are offered. Stop feeding the feeders and eventually the male Jag will eat pellets when hungry enough.
 
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tlindsey said:
The male will refuse to eat pellets as long as live feeders are offered. Stop feeding the feeders and eventually the male Jag will eat pellets when hungry enough.
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The thing is that he used to eat pellets earlier like it was his last meal. Now after feeding him feeders for 2 days, he has completely stopped. I don’t it’s because I separated the female or he has already gotten hooked to feeders. Anything I can do to make him start accepting pellets again? I feed him Hikari carni sticks and Hikari bio gold plus. Should I switch to different pellets? Or is patience is the only solution to this problem?
 
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TakkerDada said:
The thing is that he used to eat pellets earlier like it was his last meal. Now after feeding him feeders for 2 days, he has completely stopped. I don’t it’s because I separated the female or he has already gotten hooked to feeders. Anything I can do to make him start accepting pellets again? I feed him Hikari carni sticks and Hikari bio gold plus. Should I switch to different pellets? Or is patience is the only solution to this problem?
Click to expand...

Yes give more time if the Jag is healthy a week without food shouldn't be a problem.
 
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I agree with what others have said about taking a break from the feeders and letting him get hungry over the next few days. He will go back to the pellets. But the other thing that is worth mentioning is that his eating habits could have changed because you took away his mate, and he’s acting sluggish because she’s not there. If they were cleaning and digging a lot the male was probably ready to breed but the female wasn’t ready yet. That’s why he started getting rough with her. I like to use dividers instead of moving “challenged pairs” to separate tanks. You might want to think about making a divider and putting her back in the same tank with him.
 
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Quick update: The jag has started accepting pellets again but he doesn’t eat much hardly 6-7 sticks, though he keeps searching for food in the sand. He stops coming to the top after eating a few pellets. Also, I used to feed him bio gold plus earlier which I think he used to love but now usually after I feed those pellets he immediately stops eating. I think that’s because of the pellet size cause it’s the mini pellet.
 
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Need help with similar problem. Last week I did the mistake of feeding my Jaguar (male,who is alone rn. I put the female in my other tank) feeder gold fish. He was sorted for 2 days and since then he hasn’t been eating pellets. He looks active and all but earlier when I used to feed him pellets he used to go nuts.(at least for the Hikari food sticks) he used to bang against the top right part of the tank and not since the gold fish incident. He doesn’t do that, at least not with that same energy. It’s been 7 days he hasn’t eaten anything and I’m kinda getting worried now. I did a 70% water change yesterday (just putting it out there). Anything I can do for him to accept pellets or should I just wait it out? Will he be fine or should I feed him live fish?
 
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