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I recently acquired 6 WC C. fowleri, they are big 3-4", probably adults. They dwarf my biggest adult sterbai. This might be the reason they are not eating the dry foods. I've tried NLS pellets and earth worm flakes, they show absolutely no interest. The only thing they've eaten are cherry shrimps and white worms.

Has anyone experience this before and any tips on weening them onto dry foods?

Here are pics of one of these beauties

I've read that long-nosed species are harder to feed with dried food than those with short/round snout. Can't really offer any advice on how to go about weening them, just thought you'd like to know that it's not an unusual problem.

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Mats

Have you tried things like frozen bloodworm?

I know this "problem" well...none of my saddlesnouts (C115, serratus, orcesi, vittatus) will touch dry food except for C. aurofrenatus "Bolivia".

I feed them mainly with whiteworm, live artemia and blackworm/tubifex. Live daphnia and bloodworm is also on the menu. I've tried som dryfood with high content of spirulina as well, but not much luck.

Hunger causes fish to eat in a less picky way. So if they are really hungry they may sample other less favoured items.

You could create your own pellets made with significant amounts of FD food - brine shrimp/bloodworms/gammarus add in maybe some crushed earthworm sticks etc. Blitz it all up, add a little water and then compress it into little tablets which are then dried. There is a possibility they may try these.

Or presoak some flake or pellets in some sort of preferred liquid - like the juice from defrosted bloodworm - maybe also worth a try.

In the end, it's just a case of trying a fair few times with as many options as you can find and if they absolutely won't go for any, then live or frozen foods it is.

Changed title of subject as I initialy expected . Until I saw the pix of course.

Thanks for the suggestions, problem is they didn't even take the frozen bloodworms that I gave them. Atleast with the frozen bloodworms they sucked it into their mouths but out they went through their gill plates Guess I'll fatten them up with whiteworms/cherry shrimps then try the starving method.

Couldn't get them to accept any dry food, so I decided to move them out of my 30gal mixed cory tank and into their own 20gal tank for easier feeding. After 3 weeks of feeding heavily on white worms, fbw and cherry shrimps, they decided to spawn

Congrats on the spawning and great vids mate

I can really empathesize with the feeding issues, in regard to my ~8cm SL Brochis multiradiatus, who do not touch dried food (Tetra Prima; JML catfish pellets; Hikari algae wafer; crushed Tetramin flakes etc.)... Yet they go positively bonkers for defrosted critters like bloodworm and shrimp!

I'm currently trying the technique of soaking bits of the dried food with the defrosted, in the hope I can gradually adjust their eating habits. However, the Brochis are deceptive, in as much they can sometimes look like they are eating dried food when in fact they are basically stirring it round with their barbels. Hopefully the new ~5cm SL Brochis splendens youngsters in with them, who eat like gannets, may convince the others to try more foodstuffs.

Good luck with the eggs!

There are very few fish, catfishes especially, that can not be weaned to prepared (dry) foods. I have collected and kept several east African killies that the "experts" swear need live foods. All of them have been adapted to dry foods, mainly flake, and have thrived on that diet. This is key to me, in a way it is not for most, as there are no live or frozen fish foods available in Uganda.
The main issue with regard to introducing dry foods is that hobbyists give in before the fish do. The most difficult killies took three weeks without food to decide Tetra flakes were in fact delicious. Just feed a little flake, and nothing else, once a week until you see they are eating it. Most fishes will take it after a week, the real hold outs two, and only really, really picky eaters will go three.
Before anyone thinks this sounds like tough love, I have left my fishroom (20 tanks) unattended (no feeding) for four weeks without a single lose on several occasions. In the dry season in South America, fish may go as long as two to three months with basically no food. Experiments with eels (Anguilla spp) have shown they can go without eating for a year!
-Shane

A question for the cory experts, can someone tell me if these are fowleri/coriate or semiaquilus? My amateur eyes think they are not semiaquilus because they don't have as much black markings? These also came from a Peru exporter and were listed as Huanta.

Their first spawning resulted in all infertile eggs. Their second time, there were fertile eggs and they hatched a few days ago. For such big corys, their fry are similar in size to other multi egg layers (sterbai, bronze etc..) Here's a pic of a fry, the plant is a piece of taiwan moss.


and it's easy to sex mature specimens, the males have thickened pectoral fins

Male:


Female: