Hey Bro,
I starved him for 25 days and he completely ignored pellets then I had to go on a business trip for a week so I finally gave up and feed him prawns. I have never feed him live but I am sure he would love it. I have tried over 10 brands of pellets (even the ones with shrimp meal) and I have tried every method there on internet like I introduced schooling fish, inserted pellets into prawns, starved him, tried many other methods but all failed.
I even kept him in separate tank just for pellet training and still it was useless. But honestly the method which kind of worked for me was when I reintroduced him in the 340 gallon cichlid community tank. What I do is, I mix the dried shrimps in cichlid pellets (Hikari Gold, Bio Gold plus, Tetrabits) and then drop the food together and because he loves dried shrimp, he attacks the food and ends up eating some of those pellets too. I really think the problem was that before he didn't knew that pellets was food. Still he takes some pellets in the mouth and tries to eat them but spits them out. I feed him market prawns 2 days a week and 3 days I feed him dried shrimp, 2 days are break. He is slowly turning into monster now, he now dominates the tank too, even bigger fishes are scared of him, he has gained 3" in last 3 months. My plans is to starve him for 10 days now and feed only pellets and nothing else because he knows now pellets is food but just cant chew them as small round pellets are like little stones for him. I am waiting till he grows up as then he wont need to chew up the pellets that much, he will just gulp them.
I am now going to mix Hikari carnisticks with cichlid food and dried shrimp and keep feeding that for 1-2 months. the moment he will eat the Hikari carnisticks I will stop feeding him anything else. i have tried that method with freeze dried mealworm, Initially he never used to eat them but by mixing them in cichlid food, he have realised that its food and now loves it. You just need to keep finding different ways till you succeed.
Its really gets hard but dont give up, sooner or later youll find a way, every arowana is diffrent. It took me 2-3 months to finally find this method, now he is growing up and showing more colours. I have attached few recent pictures below, if you wish to know more and would like to watch a feeding video then message me on whatsapp number mentioned below. Good luck bro, have a great day.
Regards,
Additya
(+91) 9899633691
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