wild fish!

[guppymonkey]

I just started work at a pet store and found some mosquito fish (gambusia holbrooki) in with the feeder fish that we carry. I live in upstate new york so this fish is not native and is very rare to find. I bought them and have been keeping them in a quarantine tank for the last few days.

I have had a problem with the mosquito fish though. They come from the wild so they have no idea what flake fish food is! How do you get wild fish to start eating flake food?

 

[Teelie]

Gradually they'll learn to. Most of my fish started on flake food but they'll take anything I give them now, including sinking pellets. Well except my Gourami, they're still picky and only eat frozen worms or flake food at the surface.

 

[3fsh]

Well, my baby clown triggerfish wouldn't touch frozen trigger formula for the longest time... the only thing he would eat was live brine shrimp. (Most likely because he was wild-caught.) One day I decided to mix the formula with the brine shrimp (so my other trigger could have the formula) and the clown accidentally got a chunk in his mouth with the shrimp... and he liked it! From that day on he has eaten the formula. Try mixing some flake with live/frozen food. Chances are they will eat some and decide that tastes ok!