Advice on training fish to eat pellets?

[daverf]

What works best?

I'm trying to get all my fish to eat NLS pellets. I've mixed them in during feedings, but fish seem to totally ignore them and wait for the frozen or freeze dried goods. Since I don't seem to be making any progress, I'm looking for the group's advice. Thanks...

 

[jahmic]

I find that mixing frozen in with live food helps to get picky fish to eat frozen...but adding pellets to frozen/live food rarely works since the fish can easily tell the difference and will ignore pellets.

How many fish are you trying to feed, and how fat/healthy are they? You may have better luck if you skip a day of feeding to get them hungry, then introduce just pellets into the tank for a couple days. If they're hungry enough, they should start to go after the pellets.

 

[daverf]

OK, great idea Kahlis, thanks! Will give that a shot. Fish are definitely fat/healthy and probably the hardest class to convert (predators - lion/puffer/tusk etc)?

 

[jahmic]

Hopefully that works for you. Another thing that helps is crushing a few pellets just before feeding and putting the powder in a high flow area...helps get the scent of food in the water, and they usually start looking around and will go after the pellets they eventually see floating past them.