Train fish to eat flakes/pallets

[yongshun]

dear bros/sis, i've been trying to find out how to train my fishes, to be specific, my little true perc to eat flakes/pallets bt to no avail....it only seems to eat mysis...how do i train it to eat flakes/pallets? hope someone can advise and share their experience

cheers

[Thexder]

Starve it for 1 wk then feed pellets. Clownfishes are easy to adapt to pellets.

[punk12123]

Before the dawn of time, all the animals looked the same.

Normally this was fine, but some of the cheekier animals likes to play tricks on Mother Earth and pretend to be other animals.

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Since they looked exactly the same, even Mother Earth who had created them couldn't tell the difference!

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To try to fix this problem, she decided to make each different animal look different, so they couldn't swap identities.

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Now, there were some animals who liked flying through the air, or climbing trees more than anything, but not Platypus. He liked swimming.

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At the time Mother Earth sent out her message that she was going to change what everyone looked like, Platypus was under the water, playing with his friend Fish.

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Platypus stayed in the water even after Fish had got out, and since sound doesn't travel that well under water, Platypus didn't get to hear Mother Earth's message. It was only when Fish came back looking like a beautiful river fish, with his scales gleaming, that Platypus even knew about the message.

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He left immediately for Mother Earth's home, so he too could look different. But by the time he got there, there was only left overs left. Platypus so wanted to be like everyone else, that he took the left overs.

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He ended up with a beavers tail, a ducks bill and flippers, and a bears fur and claws at the end of the flippers.

When he got back to the lake to show his friends, they all just laughed at him.

Platypus was so embarrassed that he went and dug a hole in the ground near the river bank to live in.

After awhile though, Fish came along and apologised.

They become friends again, and Platypus even made another opening to his home underwater just so fish could come and visit

[johntanjm]

I've been very interested in this topic lately as I'm beginning my FOWLR. The main reason why fish don't eat pellet is because they don't know its food. In the wild, there's no such thing as pellet so when they see pellet, they don't know its actually food. This is worse if your fish is already in the main tank. any uneaten pellet will sink to the bottom and be camouflaged with the sand. fish will never get a chance to learn that it is food.

Realize from observation, J1R3H marine who always boast that their fish (even moorish idol) eat pellet, they seem do to their training in bare bottom tanks. even if pellet sink, they will be on open space where the fish can see. pellet also have smell so over time the fish might pick up the scent, get curious and peck on the pellet. from then on it will learn that pellet = food. Also one way to induce the curiosity of the fish is to use an attractant i.e. Kent Garlic Extreme, or Seachem Entice. soak pellets in these solution before feeding.

If you fish is already taking certain food, it has less incentive to try out pellet. crush the pellet into fine powder. (easy way is to put pellet on a piece of paper, then use a small pvc pipe and roll over it) before feeding mysis, pick up the mysis with a tweezer, and roll it on the pellet powder until its coated. then feed. fish will eat because its mysis and they're used to it, at the same time, they get introduced to a new taste which is pellet. initially they might take the mysis and then spit but over time they learn. I used this technique on a moorish that eats stricly J1R3H pellet. this were the steps I took to wean it onto new life spectrum.

stage 1. Soak J1R3H pellet in garlic extreme and feed. get the MI used to garlic smell

stage 2. Crush new life spectrum pellet into powder, mix with J1R3H pellet and garlic juice then feed. Now MI will get used to new life spectrum

stage 3. feed new life spectrum pellet with garlic

stage 4. feed new life spectrum alone

stage 5. feed both spectrum and J1R3H food

If you don't have space for a training tank, consider using a betta box, train the new fish for a month. also gives you time to check for disease. before letting it roam in the main tank.

[Ah-lim]

Nice post john, how ya find the new life spectrum pellet so far? As good as it claim ?

Btw, alot of time, a fish would be trained to take a certain kind of food if there's not much competition in its environment. Such as in a quarantine tank. Since there is no other competition, it feel less stress and will be easier to train as well.

[yikai]

new life spectrum very good. My moorish idol feeding aggresively on new life spectrum, jirh and dr bassler pellet. also like mysis and henry's food. basically eats anything no lies. how did i get it to eat all the different kinds of pellets? same method as john (: except mine slightly different. i just mix all 3 kinds of pellets together and let it float down the tank. as the MI i had like jirh pellets already, it just eat the pellet. but now there is 3 kinds floating together, it cannot differenciate which is which, so just makan all 3 kidns and learn that it is food. 2 weeks liao and my MI still going strong. seriouslly should consider new life spectrum. very good.