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Has anyone had any experience in maintaining these guys? I have two, and I find that they are among the most finicky eaters of all the representatives of four banjo genera I have (the other three being Aspredo, Bunocephalus and Pterobunocephalus). I have had them for about a month now, and they seem not to want to eat anything but live/frozen food. All of my other banjos will readily eat pellets (most will start cruising around eating the moment I add food to the tank), but not the Amaralia.

I tried force weaning them by stopping live food altogether, but that just reduced them to a bag of bones (they're not very fleshy to begin with).

Ideas, anyone?

Good morning Silurus.

Based on the extremely limited information on the natural diet of Amaralia (loricariid eggs) it might be interesting to try some fish eggs on your fish. Do you happen to be breeding any Ancistrus? You might try getting out to a local fishing hole and seeing if someone has caught a ripe female of something or the other (although it might be a bit late in the season for many species) from which you can harvest the eggs. I would stay away from bait shop eggs, as the processing of them can add some potentially nasty items. You also might try to find some inexpensive caviar (if that exists) for feeding experimentation.

One general comment: As long as the fish are eating something (live/frozen foods), be happy. There are certainly some catfishes that just do not want to conform to our ideas of a good diet.

Lee

Lee,

That's all well and good, but eggs are going to be either more expensive (if I go with the cheap caviar thing), or a lot more troublesome (i.e. I have to start breeding fish). Think I'll stick to the live/frozen food for now and keep my fingers crossed that the buggers will learn to eat prepared food someday.
Besides, I think eggs cannot form their diet throughout the year, since these would be available as a food source only seasonally.

maybe an increase in temperature might increase appetite? for a short period. have you tried Hakari sinking yet or tetra prima, the top quality stuff?

Tried the good stuff (Hikari carnivore pellets) to no avail. All the other fish exploded in a feeding frenzy. The Amaralia just sat there. It might have been too slow, but I doubt it, as it becomes very agitated and moves about a lot when I introduce bloodworms into the tank.

then why not feed them frozen bloodworms?

I've had fishes as well that finicky; and a strong suspicion that I aquired 4 again; Hara hara.

try frozen artemia too; freeze food is easy food; the only drawbak is that in quantity, it's more expensive than dry foods.

That's what I have been feeding them (frozen food), as mentioned in my first post.
I know they will eat frozen food. I'm just trying to find a way to get them to take prepared food.

I have no experience in keeping these but thought that if they are primarily carnivores you may try cutting small pieces of shrimp to see if they will eat it. Just an idea. I feed shrimp to a lot of my carnivore cats inaddition to other foods.

Sometimes you got to settle for picky eaters.

it's like trying to get a Chaca off the live fishes!

Bah! Nobody likes a picky eater...
Going back to the egg diet thing, I'm going to see if they accept hard-boiled egg yolks. That's gotta be cheaper than live/frozen food.

you cannot get roe where you currently live?

I made the -perhaps wrong- assumption you're living in Asia/Singapore.

given the appetite for fish over there; there should be huge markets; hunt for gravid fish! I've fed roe in the past, and almost always bought it on the fishmarket (I like to eat fish as well).

that way it's often dirtcheap too (sometimes they clean the fish at the market; fish-entrails should cost next to nothing); I've fed cod-, flounder-, forel-, sardine-, herring- and bassroe without any issues. Can remember for example that characins, dorads, trichomycterids and Corydoras go wild on roe.

and when bought fresh, it can be washed by using a cotton handkerchief as 'sieve', and frozen in small portions in an icecube-thingy.