CichlidFish.com - Fish That Think.

Well, I'm still having troubles getting my little red guy to eat, again this morning he did the same thing as always, I throw in 3-4 pellets both fish rush to the top but the red one stops and the black one literally shoves them all into his mouth then sinks to the bottom of the tank to chew. So while the black one is buzy I throw in 2 more pellets, the red one is looking around the top of the tank it seems for food... then sees the 2 pellets and starts towards them... then stops an inch or so away and then just kindof says "pfffttt... as if" then sinks away and doesn't eat them. Then the greedy black one with an already mouth full spots them, and rushes up and shoves 2 more into his mouth and now can't even close his mouth it's so full of pellets.

http://s29.photobucket.com/albums/c267/ ... I_0837.flv


So what's a guy to do? The red one has all the opportunity in the world to eat.. he just doesn't! Except if it's a bug.. then he can't get enough. And the only reason I know this is because like my last post said I was worried he was starving after a week of hardly eating any pellets so I gave him a couple bugs so he'd at least have some food... it was a one night deal not common practice.

It's almost like he doesn't like this type of pellet or something? I'm giving them Hakari Cichlid Gold mini pellets... sopposed to be very good I think? Any suggestions? I'm going to maybe try dividing the two fish and see if that helps, but the way he's acting I don't think it'll do much good since the red one is more of the aggressor and larger then the black one, if he wanted to eat he should have no problems being the first to chow down.


And one other Q, I'm going away for the weekend probably Thursday night or possibly Friday and won't be back until sometime Sunday... will they be ok? I have contacted a couple niebours and I think one of them said they would stop in and feed them if need be. So I might ask if he could come in maybe once or twice a day to drop in 5-8 pellets and be sure to fish out any they don't eat to keep the chemicals somewhat in balance. I'll probably also do a 25% water change before I leave... i've been doing probably 10% or 15% almost nightly since I got the little guys since I don't have a chem test kit yet (I live outside the city, this weekend I'm going through and picknig up a kit)

Any help is appriciated! I'm going to call up the pet store I bought these guys from and ask them what they were feeding them before I bought them

Well that probably explains a fair bit. Called the PetLand I picked them up from and asked the guy what they were feeding these cichlids before I bought them

"We try to give them a large varity of foods, blood worms, frozen krell, crickets, shrimp"
"Well what about pellets? Because I bought a large bag of good pellets since I heard it's the best thing for their health and the rest should be more treats"
"Yeah, some people feel that way but we've never had a problem with feeding them the other foods"


So basically it sounds like before I got these guys they were raised on junk food and never really had any sort of pellets. So what do I do? He seems stuborn enough to starve himself before he'd ever eat those pellets.

Not really junk foods, but feeding just these can spoil them fast.. These are treat foods as u though.. On feeding them the pellets, WHEN they get hungry they will eat.. As for you leaving for a few days, LIKE the weekend? they should do fine.. Actually they should eat the pellets when you come back.. AS they will be hungry then..

Hey tom How are they doing now?? I see you are on... Better or worse???

Bit better actually, after the weekend of not eating I think the red guy said "Ok ok... FINE... I'll eat those damn pellets..." and now it's a bit of a fight. I think the red one is getting sick of the black one eating all the food so now instead of throwing in 3-4 pellets at a time and having the black one snag them all within seconds I plop maybe 1-2 in the tank and they now fight to eat it. I also picked up some bloodworms and Krell for them, the way I work it is if the red one eats some pellets I'll break a Krell in half and give each fish a chunk, or maybe a pinch of bloodworms and they can fight over them. So it's kindof like a treat/desert you give to your kids for eating their veggies at supper! I'll slow down on the feeding of "desert" after awhile and maybe get it to only be every couple days. I also picked up a python, quite handy little thing! That and a bottle of de-clorine and clormane or whatever it's called, I think the bottle is called Aqua Plus? Seems to work well and let me tell you it's sooooo nice to be able to pour water from the tap, throw in some of this chem, stir and straight into the tank! Much nicer then before. I also picked up a new thermometer since my old one I think was wrecked, temp was a bit cold 72F so I got it up to around 78F - 80F now. And I'm on the hunt for a used 100+ gallon tank... might be interesting to find one since I live in a very small town, but hopefully I'm on enough forums someone will point me in the right direction. I also need to find a new filter (hopefully with the new tank someday) because the one I have just hangs off the back and sucks the water in and through a sponge/carbon/amonia or whatever and twice now it's been leaking... I live in an appartment and loosing a couple L of water out the back of the tank is not a good thing... I think I know where the problem is and for now it's not leaking but it has me nervous


So anyway, as it sits the black one still will outeat the red one but at least the red one is eating the pellets. Tom 1, Fish 0!

Way to go!

Yeah it's kindof fun. Being in a small town there really isn't alot to do so these two get alot of attention. They are getting really used to me, had them for about 3 weeks now? But when I clean the tank even with the python they swim around it and watch for any stirred up food. When I move rocks around or have my hand/arm in the tank they swim around with my arm and don't hide anymore. They actually get pretty excited now when I pull out the python to clean because generally once everything is done they get some Krell or bloodworms. So they seem very happy which I like because I've heard of some people who's Oscars get really pissy when you clean the tank. I get a kick out of when I pour the new water in they usually swim into the stream of water and get pushed around, then quickly swim back to do it all over again. They go out of their way to get under that stream so I guess they find it fun 


And I have a lead on someone with a 100ish gallon used tank! So I'm keeping my fingers crossed he isn't asking to much (going to call him this afternoon) How much does a used tank like that go for usually?

It's pretty much like buying anything used.  Some people have a really inflated view of what their stuff is now worth, while others realize they aren't going to recoup their original investent.  Also depends on what they're including -- Just the tank, or tank & stand, or tank, stand, cover, lighting, filters, gravel, etc (gravel usually not included).  Go by a pet shop and check the prices on new equipment.  That way you'll have something solid to compare to. Good luck!

Well, talked with the guy, problem was he was on a cell and couldn't hardly understand him but he apparently had it all setup as a salt water tank with eels and coral and what not, mentioned it's 5' x 2' x 2' which I think is 150gal is it not? I'll have to find a converter somewhere on the web to make sure. He also said something about getting his money out of it... which to me isn't a good thing I want cheap used not nearly the price of new used 


So we'll see. I'm getting him to send me some pic's of it setup with the stands and everything so I can get an idea what I'm up against. Then maybe I can wheel and deal a bit