Loaches only eat flakes

[Holdstrong]

Have a trio of new loaches who do not seem to recognize anything as food unless it is a flake. I can only assume this is what the LFS fed them.

Shrimp pellets, hikari wafers, anything that is not a flake is completely ignored... almost as if they do not know it is food. In other words, they don't go to it and nose around, maybe take a bite, and move on... they act like they don't even know it is there.

On some days I have been feeding ONLY these things to try to get them to eat them... all of the other fish nibble (Platies, tetras, my pleco) but not the new loaches.

Two questions:

Anything wrong with just continuing to feed them the flakes they will eat?

How can I introduce some variety in their diet if they don't seem to recognize the food as food?

Thank you!

[LoachOrgy]

try some sliced cucumber on a stainless steel spoon. sharp edges facing down as not to hurt your fish.

also, you will find this evident when you get them from the lfs sometimes. they are used to flakes bc that is what they feed them. more often than not, about 30% of the tank if not the whole tank has cws(chronic wasting syndrome). I have compained many times to petsmart but like they say" 16 years olds don't care" and most of the people that work there are 16. nothing against youngins but i find even the managers at times don't care much.

ill often find that if you have a blue moon light, the loaches that are a bit scared during lit hours may come out and eat at night. if this is the case, maybe they eat it when your not looking. leave it at the bottom and see what happens.



it took my striatas a week to figure out that cucumber was food. just give them time.

[starsplitter7]

What kind of loaches do you have? What other fish do you have?

Have you tried garlic?

[mickthefish]

three foods to try holdstrong, earthworms, frozen or fresh bloodworms and cocktail prawns either as a whole shrimp or diced up a bit.
as a veg food either peas or zuccini sliced in half and weighted down with something, if they don't eat them it's easy to remove.

hope this helps.
mick

[kimura]

i havent met a loach yet that didnt love frozen blood worms. i'd give them time to figure out the new stuff is food. this may also help........ i've had loaches that were picky and only wanted a certain kind of food. i started feeding them more often during the day so their metabolism spead up. on one of the meals i would put only food they didnt like. they were either so hungry they started eating it or one loach liked it and nobody could bare letting him eat the food uncontested. after awhile they eat everything i put in the tank.....

[lf11casey]

I had the same problem with my last yoyo I got. Within a week I got him to eat frozen bloodworms. It took another week or so to start eating the sinking pellets that I was feeding my other yoyos. He eats just about anything I put in the tank now, except veggies. None of my yoyos will eat them, but they will eat algae wafers.

[Holdstrong]

Oh jeez, sorry for leaving out what kind of loaches.

They are clowns. Had them about 2 weeks now, I'd say they are about 2 and a half inchers. Fairly active, seem to enjoy the new home. They are in a tank with some platies, some tetras and a pleco.

Great call on the blood worms. They definitely figured out that that was food.

I'm going to try the Cuc/Zuch this coming week as well.

(interestingly enough, the cory pandas in another tank dont seem to notice the hikari waffers either)

I've heard the moon light recommended in the past, can anyone point me to some info on this? Where to get, best practices for use, etc.

[mickthefish]

if you go to your lfs and ask for blue moon flourescent tube they should have them in stock.

mick