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African cichlids no longer eating

34K views 10 replies 4 participants last post by  LOUIE ACES 
#1 ·
i bought a group of african cichlids about 5 months ago and every time i would feed them they would go nuts! i would just stand next to the tank with the jar of food and they would know it was time to eat. about 2 weeks ago i decided to give them their first ever live feeder fish meal. they loved it! my venustus had 5 fish in his mouth at once he was so into it. strangely enough, ever since that feeding, when i put the pellets in the tank, they couldnt care less. theyre still alive so i guess their eating but i never see them eat any more. i tried frozen bloodworms and they checked it out and took a couple of bites but nothing that could be considered having a meal. help!
 
#2 ·
I wouldnt recomend you to feed them feeder fish again. feeder fish can cary deises. What kind of cichlids do you have? They are among the mouth brooders which maybe you have some females careing fry in there mouths. If its ben 2 weeks they are still eating. It will take them some time to come back to knowing that that is whats for dinner. Skip one day of feeding. Then feed them and see if they go for it like they use to.
 
#3 ·
I have a Venustus (7 inches), an Aulonocara Blue Gold (5 inches), and a Melanochromis Auratus Male (5 inches). I tried not feeding for a day like a week after and the venustus seemed a little hungry but the other two couldnt be bothered. even my catfish seems to have no appetite but i wouldnt think he even tried the feeders. He used to go crazy for the pellets and freeze dried brine shrimp but now he just hangs out under the filter spout. My main concern is why they're not their usual active selves and I'm worried that they could be sick but not showing any symptoms other then behavioral.
 
#4 ·
I have,as I have mentioned in other posts,seen fish that refuse to eat prepared foods or store bought foods once feeder fish have made the menu. In some cases, fasting (starving) the fish for three or four days can help them to remember that they need to eat what is provided. This I will admit is very hard to do especially when fish appear at the front of the tank and beg. Cichlids have the ability to store food in their stomachs unlike some omnivores who have rather long intestines as opposed to stomachs. Could be the meal of feeders has not been entirely digested and the fish simply aren't hungry. Feeder fish unless growing your own,, are fastest way I know of introducing disease to an otherwise healthy tank. And even if growing or raising your own,, theycshould be a once a month perhaps treat.
If I recall you have these fish in a 55 gal or 45 gal tank. I might be tempted to perform twice weekly water changes of 25 to 30 percent while seeing to it that ammonia and nitrites are zero all day, and nitrates are no higher than 20ppm.In this way should some type of pathogen be present,you can at least rule out por water conditions while at the same time provide the fishes with the best chance of fighting off any possible ailments. When in doubt,, water changes won't hurt anything unless they have been non existent for too long.
 
#8 ·
+1

soem fish are like some dogs, once they getahold of a animal by accident it totally changes them. they wont eat for days and when they do eat its just a very small amount.

I agree with the others here, keep a eye on your water params as you mentioned you had one that chills by the filter, could be stress. you also want to take notice if the color of the fish gets dull or light as this can be a sighn of stress. dont worry 5-6 days to get them back on regular food and they will be fine.
might alwso want to note when you feed them live food this can lead to more aggression. i know a guy with 6 pirannas full grow and has raised them on pellets. he tryed feeding them live and all they did was sit in the tank untill my buddy took them out when he noticed ick in the tank the feeders sat in there for like a week.
 
#6 ·
Fish can go a week without food with no harm done. It is not something to practice on a regular basis but I have seen fish that refused to eat for up to ten days when first introduced to new enviornment. I once kept a group of discus that upon arriving ,They refused food for almost a week and a half despite my attempts at feeding them twice each day. It was frustrating for I thought they were perhaps sick from the trip or perhaps from some type of parasite. I kept the water conditions good and simply kept trying each day with different foods, after a while they all began to feed and all was well.
I also have a couple fish stores in my area that only feed the fish every three days. They keep many fish in rather small tanks and this helps them maintain good water quality with minimum water changes. Fish are always healthy looking and less problems with deteriorating conditions in the holding tanks.
 
#7 ·
ok so sunday was the first day i actually fed my cichlids in three days. they ate a pinch of food and werent even that excited about that...but something is better then nothing. i went to feed them today but they saw the container and didnt even get excited so i decided not to even put the food in. ill wait to let them get hungry.
 
#9 ·
question: i have the two full grown cichlids left, the venustus and the blue gold, would it be possible to add smaller cichlids into the aquarium or would the bigger guys try to eat them? im debating on either waiting for the other ones to die or trade them in for little ones to prevent risking buying them just for them to be food (now that they got a taste for live food)
 
#10 ·
Not quite sure what you mean, 'should I wait for other fish to die?" healthy Cichlids often live for up to ten years or beyond. If you wish to find new homes for the fish you currently have ,that would be the best option with regards to introducing new SMALLER cichlids to a tank where present fish have set up territory's and or established a pecking order. Your aquarium info indicated eight assorted cichlids but now there are only two? Did other fish find new homes?
Were it me, (and it ain't) I would continue to care for the remaining two cichlids until such time as I found them a new home .(nobody want's sick fish) I would then carefully research the fish that interested me taking care that they all shared same water requirements with respect to ph, and temperatures, I would purchase fish that were small and of the same sex if possible to reduce aggression somewhat. I would quarantine all new fish before introducing them to my tank to help prevent disease from being introduced,I would see to it that weekly water changes rendered zero for ammonia and nitrites and if not,,I would perform twice weekly water changes if needed. I would stick with fish from the same area ,southamerica. malawi cichlids,mbuna cichlids,Tanganiykan etc. and lastly,, I would NOT feed feeders. Too many much more nutritious foods out there.
 
#11 ·
well yeah i dont know what ive been doing wrong, maybe waiting too long between water changes, but like every month i would have another cichlid die but my water parameters never reached dangerous levels. i bought them all full grown though so i dont know how old they are. they could be 5-10 yrs old for all i know. so right now i'm down to 2 cichlids, a gibbicepps pleco, and a spotted raphael cat. i figured before the cichlids died, i could trade them in for a group of little ones and let the pet store deal with them.
 
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