Cichlid will only eat bloodworms

Cory Lover

Cory Lover

AC Members
Oct 8, 2006
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Hey everyone,

My Severum is being a really picky eater; she ignores or spits out all food that is not bloodworms, like tubifex worms, veggie flakes, pellets, etc. Because she is only eating bloodworms, she is becoming pretty skinny and I'm worried about her. I don't understand why she suddenly won't eat any other food (she was a piggy with all food a few weeks ago). Could anyone give me an explanation? I know if she wasn't eating anything then that would be a bad sign of course, but she is eating the bloodworms.

Thanks,
Matt
 
Well, Here's the deal.

If someone feed you ramen noodles for a while, and then switched to steak, and then back to ramen noodles, what would you do? Spit outthe ramen noodles!

Blood Worms alone will not provide an adequate diet. It also has alot of protien and can constipate fish. I'm not sure if that would make them skinny though.

At any rate, I would feed exclusively pellets, or whatever balanced food you want them to eat for a while. Typically, when they get hungry enough, they will eat it again if they have eaten it in the past. Remember...fish can go for weeks without food, and in the wild they do. You are not starving them or being cruel by doing this, you are really saving their life, because if they are skinny from a nutrient deficiency, they will die eventually.
 
If your really worried about it wait a couple days before you feed next. Then she'll eat whatever you give her. That's how I got my picky fish who supposedly only take live/frozen foods trained on flake.

Same thing applies to picky kids. Parents can't figure out why Johnny will only eat chicken nuggets so they only feed him chicken nuggets. Johnny will eat anything if he gets hungry enough but the parents are too worried to let him get that hungry so they end up with a kid who will only eat chicken nuggets.
 
Try some garlic juice (soak pellets or flakes in it) both to stimulate appetite and clean out any parasites.
 
get some dried blood worms, and mix them with a container of your other food, i mix several containers and types of food together in a larger one so i dont have to open 3-4 cans of food to give my fish a vaired diet. maybe your foods will smell/taste like the others and it'll be more reseptive to it.
 
Dr. Awkward said:
If your really worried about it wait a couple days before you feed next. Then she'll eat whatever you give her. That's how I got my picky fish who supposedly only take live/frozen foods trained on flake.

Same thing applies to picky kids. Parents can't figure out why Johnny will only eat chicken nuggets so they only feed him chicken nuggets. Johnny will eat anything if he gets hungry enough but the parents are too worried to let him get that hungry so they end up with a kid who will only eat chicken nuggets.
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So true...
 
A fish shouldn't already be getting skinny after 2 wks even if it weren't eating anything at all. Something else is going on if that's really the case.
However-you're the human and she's the fish. If you don't feed bloodworms she won't eat bloodworms. If you feed the other kinds of foods....that's what she'll eat.
Simple :-)
 
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