African Butterflyfish Won't Eat...

Channti

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I've got 3 african butterflyfish in my 46 gallon tank.

They were originally fed crickets only prior to arriving at my house. Crickets are inconvenient to feed daily (and highly expensive in comparison to flake and pelleted foods).

I slowly began to feed them Nutrafin MAX flake (which is mainly for the serpae tetras in the tank). And Wardley Floating Cichlid pellets (that I'd left to soak prior to feeding so that they were easy to bite). They get crickets once every two weeks now. Flake daily for the tetras (which they nibble on), and cichlid pellets every other day.

2 of the 3 ABF's took to this new diet immediately, continuing to retain their stocky and solid body-shape (and improving in colour too!). The 3rd ABF hasn't eaten in about a week. I figured that if I left it long enough, eventually he'd get hungry and eat, but that doesn't seem to be the case. He refuses to eat pellets and flake. His stocky and solid body shape has deteriorated to being very thin and bony-looking.

I have a 10 gallon tank in another room that I'm using to grow out an Angel an inch or so so that he's big enough to go into the 46 gallon without getting picked on by the Serpae tetras (and hold a handful of corys and a couple otocinclus until I move them in two weeks). Should I move the not-eating ABF to this tank? What can I do to get him to eat?
 
I have to "spot feed" my ABF some Prima Discus, a single pellet at a time. Most days he is chilled and eats in his stride, but some days like this morning, I may as well have been offering him a fishing line and hook... He was so spooked!
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(thankfully he ate several pellets at "tea" time a while back).

Mealworms are apparently regarded as feasts.

"the biffster" use to breed ABF and from what I know, he is the best qualified member to get help from.
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Pellets go RIGHT into his line of sight, directly beside his eyes and around his mouth, and yet he refuses to touch them. I don't know what to do anymore...
 
Have things improved yet with dry food?

How about some live mealworms, small crickets, or bloodworms?
 
he won't touch dry food. The pellets were even soaked for 5 minutes prior to feeding so that they were soft.

I fed 1 dozen crickets last night. The one who isn't eating (I'm calling him Skinny from now on) ate half a cricket, and left the other half for the loaches. Skinny swam right up to the crickets too, looked at them, and then swam away. He saw them and chose not to eat them....

The serpae tetra school took 2 crickets. And the loaches and two other ABF's took the rest.

He's looking REALLY skinny. I'm afraid he's going to die. I -know- he's not getting enough food, but I don't know what to do.! :(
 
Have you been back to the shop to confirm what they were feeding the ABFs?
Is it worth taking "Skinny" back to them, so they can see his state of health?
Are all three ABFs getting on with each other? I could have sworn I read somewhere that multiple males can cause aggression issues, just like with many species.

At least Skinny ate something, its a start. My one is now readily eating Prima Discus pellets or flake and is getting routined to my "spot feeding." Fingers crossed for Skinny...
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When I bought them together a few weeks back, everyone was eating. Skinny stopped when I started feeding dry foods primarily. I went from crickets 3x a week to 2x a week to 1 a week, feeidng pellets in between and flake daily for the tetras.

Everyone was eating until I stopped feeding crickets.

It's like he's gone on a hunger strike for live foods.

I think he may need to be rehomed. Skinny is also the most aggressive of the three. I'm going to see if my LFS will let me trade him in for store credit or something. If I can keep him though, I'd like to.
 

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