Pelvicachromis Taeniatus Moliwe: Not Eating?

[indigoj]

My friend bought a proven wild caught breeding pair of these lovely fish but until today they had not eaten for a week!

The male looks particularly thin now and she is concerned he may either refuse to eat again or have something sinister such as internal parasites.

Any ideas on what to do?

BTW, she has tried lots of different foods, tubiflex tempted them this morning but the female got most of it.

Please help, she doesn't want to lose this beautiful pair.

Thanks

 

[kribensis12]

Put in some dithers for them to eat, since they are wild they arent to keen on flake. Also try ghotshrimp.

 

[indigoj]

Put in some dithers for them to eat, since they are wild they arent to keen on flake. Also try ghotshrimp.

LOL, they are shoaling with the Praecox Rainbows!

 

[DarkEntity]

try dipping the food into garlic before feeding.

 

[kribensis12]

Garlic might attract them.

 

[nmonks]

P. taeniatus is, like all other Pelvicachromis, a fish that feeds primarily on algae and decaying plant detritus.* The one thing my P. taeniatus seem to enjoy is algae dragged up from a pond. Spirogyra-type things I suppose. They'll happily pick away at it for hours. They also seem to like Spirulina flake. Sushi Nori is also worth a shot, since most algae-eating animals seem to enjoy it.

Of course, aquarium books are filled with sage advice like "kribs eat small insects such as bloodworms". But your wild caught fish don't read the aquarium books, and so don't know what it is they're meant to be eating. All they know about is what they eat in the wild. Which, in this case, is algae and plant material of various sorts. So lay off trying to give them meaty flake or small invertebrates, grab a net, and go scoop some thread algae out of a clean pond!

Cheers, Neale

* See: Nwadiaro, CS (1985) The distribution and food habits of the dwarf African cichlid, Pelvicachromis pulcher in the River Sombreiro, Nigeria. Hydrobiologia 121: 157-164.

 

[FISH KEEPER EXP]

I have some Nannochromis transvestitus at work which done the same thing,

i tryed everything from live foods to small planktonic foods, i manged to get them going on in the end on Cyclops and i also put some chadlofolia moss balls in the tank and they did pick at these. we have had them for 2 weeks and they have already grown half inch maybe that may help. I found that regular water change and a moderately soft hardness also helped. I don't mean pH of 6 i mean pH of 7. They now run in softwater and they are still eating maybe this may help.

It would be nice to get them breeding, much better than the standard Pulcher.