Problem feeding jack dempseys, please help!

[cgronko]

Hey,
I am having a problem with some electric blue jack dempseys i resently got 7days ago. They were in a huge 210 gal aquairum with many other fish and now i have the 5 of them in a 55 gallon. They immediatly hide when ever i walk into the room and are too scared to go to the top of the tank to eat pellets. When i put anything that sinks into the tank it just sinks to the bottom and gets lost in the gravel. I am having a pretty hard time feeding these fish and i am getting sick of doing daily water changes because there is so much extra food in the tank. Anyone know how to get these fish to not be soo scared of me? Is there something i could put in the tank or something i should take out? I am getting so sick of it i am thinking about just taking all the rocks out of the tank and keeping it empty. Would this solve the problem? The only thing is that the dempseys are very aggressive and i dont know if the big male would attack the other fish and kill them if the smaller dempseys didnt have any where to hide? Please if anyone knows how to fix this problem let me know! Thank you very much.

[Dave66]

Just give them a few days to adapt to the new tank, cg. They won't starve, and when they adapt to the tank they will most certainly eat.

Dave

[MCHRKiller]

Some dither fish would help you alot...my little salvini did a 180* personality change when I added 3 rosie barbs he was hiding and scared constantly added those and hes a bold confidient fish. Most juvie cichlids are like that. Do you plan on getting a larger tank for these fish? If not Id suggest taking atleast 2-3 of them back to the LFS.

[Evil Slimy]

I would add a few live feeder ghost shrimp to the tank. When I first got my severum he stopped being timid in a day's time once he realized there was live food in the tank. The JDs will be too busy hunting/chasing to worry about being scared or uncomfortable. They'll adapt to their new tank a lot faster. Let them know it's a good place to be ;)

[Lady Hobbs]

Adapting to new surroundings and far less room. Jack's get to be a foot long. You can't keep 5 in a 55 gallon so hope you're planning on parting with some of them?

[cgronko]

Well I bought a breeding group and once i figure out which one is the female that is breeding with the big male in the tank i am going to take the other 3 out.

[cgronko]

What kind of dither fish do you suggest? Will danios be a good dither fish?

[cgronko]

Was thinking 5-6 zebra danios... Would this help out at all? Do you suggest a different fish. If they eat them i will be happy but im guessing they wont.

[Evil Slimy]

The giant danios would probably work better. They are less likely to be eaten.

[Lady Hobbs]

That would be my suggestion. I have 8 of them and they are fast and a good size.

[cgronko]

I just picked up 6 giant danios. They are crazy fast and just swimming at the top. Hopefully the dempsey will come out more, if not atleast i have some fish that are crazy hungry and will eat any remaining food floating around.

[Evil Slimy]

Did adding dither fish work? Any improvement?