Weaning antias onto pellets

[inktomi]

(edit - bah! it's anthias* not antias! I wish I could change the title...)

Hello folks!

I've had a trio of Evansi Anthias for a little over a month, and I'm concerned that they'd decided they don't like freeze dried Cyclops anymore... at least - they don't eat it as much as they used to.

I've ordered a canister of New Life Spectrum pellets, since they're supposed to be super wonderful - but my anthias won't even give them a second glance.

The thing that they /really love/ is Rod's Reef food - even more than PE Mysis.

I've mixed some pellets into the auto feeder that feeds them cyclops while I'm at work - but I'm concerned that it'll all go to waste if they're not eating them yet. I figured maybe having them in the water more often would make the pellets more pallatable.. who knows.

How would you go about convincing Anthias that they want to eat pellets?

I'm not convinced they're getting enough to eat, now that they've turned up their noses at freeze dried cyclops =\.

[inktomi]

Oh, so far what I've been trying is mixing in a few pellets with what they like - the PE Mysis and the Rod's Reef food - but it doesn't appear to be working...

Can't I just catch them and stick a pellet in their mouth like we do with cats who don't like pills? hah

[joet3580]

never had much luck

[lin0501]

I mix the NLS pellets with mysis and a bit of garlic and my anthias ate both.

[inktomi]

I'll go try that right now - will report back. I'll try Rod's Reef since that already has many sizes in it, and it seems to be their favorite.

[inktomi]

Well, I think that they confused the pellets with Rod's Reef pieces parts - but certainly no aggressive feeding response towards the pellets =\

I think the added garlic did help a bit though, I'll keep trying that.

[returnofsid]

Why are you determined to feed pellets? Most pellets are really not very nutritious for our fish. I'd suggest trying to wean it onto something frozen, like Forumula1 or Rod's Food.

[Mako]

NLS pellets are extremely nutritious for fish. I like the marine fish sinking pellets myself and my Bartletts tear them up. Not sure why your Evansi are not taking to them, but given time I believe they will.

[inktomi]

I feed PE Mysis in the morning, and Rod's Reef in the evening. I'm just looking for something dry that I can put into an auto feeder for the daytime while I'm at work.

After researching various pellets and flakes, it seems that NLS is far and beyond the best choice for dry foods - so I'd love it if my anthias would warm up to them :)

I think maybe once my clowns get a little bigger and the anthias start paying attention to them they'll see the clowns eating the pellets and maybe start. They just need to see them as "food" I think.

Maybe I'll break out some hand puppets :)

[Gary Majchrzak]

the pellets need to be moving in the water column