[engotski]

So another fish not eating thread...

Acquired 15 fish in the last 3 weeks to go complete my stock in the 180g. 4 of the newly acquired fish have not been interested in eating but are active and exhibit normal behavior.

8" male eye biter and 3" male protemelas spilonitus tanzania were one of the first introduced in the tank about 3 weeks ago. They didn't eat for 7 days, takes food in then spits out so I panicked and put them in a hospital tank thinking of bloat. I treated them with clout x3 doses for 1 week. Eye biter eventually ate some pellets but not readily (pellets were at the bottom of the tank for a few mins). Noticed normal poop so back in the main tank he goes. P. Spilonitus didn't eat but he doesn't have any symptoms of bloat so back in the main tank he went as well. Been in the main tank for a week and they still don't care much about food, I normally feed North Fin pellets once daily. I tried flakes once and the eye biter seems to take some...very odd because he's such a big fish.

A 6" male red top lwanda is in the hosptial tank for the same situation. Now I got a 6" male albino eye biter behaving normally and doesn't care for food too. He's been in the tank for 4 days.

Am I being paranoid about the whole situation? How long is the longest success story of a fish not eating after introduced in a new environment? Tank has been running for over 2 yrs - water parameters are stable as it always has.

Any input is appreciated. Thanks!

 

[FarmerDan]

So, 15 fish in 3 weeks?

How many fish were in the tank before that?

When you added the fish did you increase the feeding because you had more fish? or did you stop feeding for a day to let the bio filter catch up?

Sometimes people put too many fish in too fast and the bio filter doesn't catch up fast enough. Is your water cloudy at all? is the tank set up in a way you can look through it the long way from one end to another? looking through that way you can sometimes see cloudiness that isn't visible from the front.

I'd test for ammonia and nitrite.

How are you setting up the hospital tanks? Are you putting them in a tank with it's own biofilter? Or are you relying on daily water changes and Prime or something similar that detoxifies ammonia and nitrite?

 

[engotski]

I had 20+ fish in the tank prior last summer, it's filtered with 2 well established FX6s packed with seachem matrix. My water parameters are spot on as mentioned, 0ppm 0ppm 10ppm. Before I added fish recently, my stock went down to 12 fish. An unfortunate summer event where my tank got up to 86F for 2 weeks..my Moba Zaires turned against each other and others...

Hospital tank is a standalone with its own HOB filter with seeded media.

I'm thinking the fish are not eating due to stress. I'm not experienced enough to say for sure and if it will lead to bloat. I don't want to keep treating with clout again and again as I have read the medicine can be tough on their system.

 

[DJRansome]

I have had trouble getting larger fish (like 8") to eat initially. But what is stressing the fish? I would fix the stress problem. I would not treat for bloat unless the diagnosis is confirmed and never with clout.

 

[engotski]

I didn't notice any bullying or anything. I rescaped the tank anyways and added tall pieces of previously used driftwood on each side of the tank to break sight lines. Tank is pretty tame. I'm hoping they get over the stress from moving

 

[BlueSunshine]

We've never had much luck with buying grown fish. I do hope things work out for you.

 

[engotski]

We've never had much luck with buying grown fish. I do hope things work out for you.

the D. Compressiceps is now eating! He's taken a bit of food new yrs eve, and full feed last night! Very encouraging to see...now just need the Lwanda, P. Spilonitus to do the same. Albino D. Comp has only been in with the group for 7 days so I hope he gets in the action soon.

 

[FarmerDan]

From the sounds of it you may just have some fish settling in. Hopefully in the days since your last post you've seen them eating more?

Sometimes if you don't have the tank set up right your fish can take a really long time to settle in so re arranging the tank is a good place to start; hopefully that worked for you.