Weaning fish off live food

[Dinyar]

The list of fish that will not accept dead foods following a bit of thought, care and work by the aquarist is very small, and we have a choice whether or not to keep these fish at all.

OK, guys and gals, I've been putting in "a bit of thought, care and work" into weaning 8 wild caught fish of a Badis species (yes, I know it's not a catfish, but it's a coolfish nonetheless) off live worms and onto frozen food, but so far have not met with any success. I've starved them for 48 hours and fed with thawed plankton (small shrimp, a bit bigger than Mysis). They gobble it up but then spit it out. Spicing the shrimp up with Seachem GarlicGuard -- supposedly an appetite stimulant -- didn't help either.

I'm told it IS possible to wean them off live foods and onto frozen, meaty foods. What should I be doing?

Dinyar

[Barbie]

I would feed them with the live variety of whatever you're going to try to wean them onto in the frozen format. If you can find live blackworms, then switch them onto frozen bloodworms, and so on. I had good luck with that method with a powerhead to stir them around a bit in the water column. I would also add some fish in with them that will show them by feeding behavior example that the frozen stuff is also food. I know garlic is a great treatment for internal parasites, but I hadn't ever noticed it actively stimulating the discus to feed any more than the regular food did. Warmer water will sometimes stimulate their appetite somewhat also.

If you've only had them in your tank for a couple weeks, I wouldn't panic until they're getting ready to leave quarantine stage. As they settle in, they'll probably be easier to coax onto frozen food sources

Barbie

[magnum4]

I normaly start off by mixing some frozen with live and then increase the mix percentage. after they are on full frozen then do the same with a different food sourse, i have found this to be the fastest method. Got my wild discus to take flake if thats anything to go by.

[coelacanth]

OK, guys and gals, I've been putting in "a bit of thought, care and work"

Sarcastic git

I've starved them for 48 hours and fed with thawed plankton (small shrimp, a bit bigger than Mysis). They gobble it up but then spit it out. Spicing the shrimp up with Seachem GarlicGuard -- supposedly an appetite stimulant -- didn't help either.

OK, what we can tell is that the food you are using is visually attractive to them. Therefore you have most of the problems out of the way. The biggest hindrance to getting any fussy fish to take non-moving food is finding something that they actually recognize as a food item.
So what you need to do is find something that satisfies their visual recognition system, and once engulfed has the right taste/texture/whatever to be ingested.
What I would do is find some live invertebrate foods that they will take, and then introduce the frozen equivalents. As they are already trying non-living food this shouldn't take more than a few days.

[Jools]

Just to add 2pence:

I have a pike cichlid that I collected in Venezuela, until recently it only ate guppies or live bloodworm. After moving house (when it was not fed for 3 days) I found it began and now continues to eat frozen bloodworm.

Upon returning from two weeks away, it now eats tetra prima/colourbits and chews but spits out tabimin. Flake still is ignored.

Like big water changes for triggering spawning, I think a lot of this boils down to a risky game of chicken between aquarist and fish.

Feed them up then starve your fish for two weeks (or do an 80% water change in the spawning example) - they'll either change their habits or die not trying. I know this is extreme and I am not advocating cruelty here, but healthy, well fed fish can last for weeks without food.

I would also add that the pike was in with many other fish who would eat other foods and so I think dither fish are important too. At the risk of creating biotope chaos, try introducing a few Apistos as dither fish?

Jools