gardneri killifish wont eat

[johns]

Hi. I just yesterday purchased a gardneri killifish for a small 3 gallon cold water tank. The tank is well planted and has had 2 hillstream loaches doing quite well in it for the past 2 months or so. I heard that these fish could do fine in a small cold water tank, so I decided to try it out.

The problem is feeding. I didn't even try to feed it yesterday. But today I tried a few things and it wouldn't take anything. I tried live blood worms, freeze dried bloodworms, tiny broken off pieces of various sinking (meaty-based) foods. With these sinking foods, I broke tiny pieces in tweezers and held them up right in front of it's nose. The fish didn't get scared or freak out from the tweezers at all. I was able to put the tiny pieces of food right on the tip of its nose, but no luck.

Is it too early for me to worry about this yet? How long do you think these could go without food, and are there other things I should try?

[Dapple2]

Gardneri's are fairly hardy. Yours probably just aren't used to the new tank. Most of my killies start eating within a day or two, some of theem hold out for three or four. Other foods to try might be microworms, grindal worms, fruit flies, brine shrimp, daphnia...it's highly likely that they are used to at least a few of these. Mine like brine shrimp lakes and Hikari Micromini too.

[johns]

Tried again tonight with the same mix of foods. Still wont eat. Starting to get a bit more worried now.

[wetmanNY]

How cold is cold? In the low 60s? Try a partial water change and some live blackworms. Is there plenty of plant cover, like loose tangles of Java Moss. Gardneri are shy at first...