Chinese Dwarf Snakehead

[Ady Bowers]

Hi,

Have a Chinese Dwarf Snakehead. Only about 6” in with 2 silver dollars, a green severum and a small(ish) Oscar. Prob not the best mix but after a week they are all keeping to themselves. Problem is the snakehead isn’t eating. Tried prawns, bloodworm, pellets. Not interested. It’s active but won’t feed. Any advice?

 

[MattW38 154]

Never kept a predator fish bigger than a betta before, so no experience. Though to me, live food might do the trick with a fish like that. River shrimp seem to be sold in most places. Are the bloodworms that you feed live or frozen?

Or maybe the other thing is that it may feed at night or when the lights are off. You could try feeding just after the lights go off and see what happens

 

[Tomsfish17 60]

I kept a large snake head before they were illegal [ yea I am that old~!]
I would offer live food probably small feeder fish.
Training a predator to eat prepared food can take some serious patients and holding out.
If the fish is new it might be in the best interest to acclimate it properly and make sure it is healthy and comfortable before trying to make changes.

 

[Ady Bowers]

Never kept a predator fish bigger than a betta before, so no experience. Though to me, live food might do the trick with a fish like that. River shrimp seem to be sold in most places. Are the bloodworms that you feed live or frozen?

Or maybe the other thing is that it may feed at night or when the lights are off. You could try feeding just after the lights go off and see what happens

Feeding when the lights off might be something to try. It is more active when darker. Any food goes in the Oscar hoovers it up. Tried forceps. Taken a few prawns but thought snakeheads were greedy feeders. This is shying away from everything.

 

[GaryE]

I'm hoping they're legal in the Halifax you live in. In the Halifax here in eastern Canada, they aren't. The reasons for the ban seem pretty sensible to me.

Larger obligatory predators end up as pretty abused fish in a lot of set ups. If you think about it, each habitat has its apex predator. But we throw predators together in smallish tanks because they have the same habits. A boisterous, eat anything and everything Oscar is going to outcompete a quieter, stealthier predator like that Channa species. It'll muscle in. You'll always have trouble.

If you've chosen a predator like that, you might not get away with feeding it as a scavenger with dead foods. When they were still legal here, I saw some dwarf Channa being successfully kept longterm in tanks of around 180 to 300 gallons. One pair, no other fish. They hunted in reaction to movement, so they got live food. There were no other fish to snatch the food away. I'm no fan of feeding live fish to fish, but the prey animals would swim around the tanks for a day or more sometimes. Predators don't need to eat daily.

You need another aquarium.