How to get my Frontosa UNscared of his food

**John_Johnathan** · 06-03-2011, 02:56 AM

I have this Frontosa (He's a year and a half old and approx 4 inches long and has a 20 gal tank to himself.) and he's real cool and all that but he has this really annoying habbit. He's scared of his food. I use Cichlid Staple large pellets. They float on the top of the water. In the begining everything was fine but somewhere along the way he decided that his food was evil or something and now is scared of it while its floating on the top. He'll approach it real timid like, maybe nudge closer, act like he's going to eat it...and then change his mind and swim away. He repeats the process several times. If he gets hungry enough he'll eventually grab it and then shoot down and across the tank like a rockett...sometimes smashing into the other side. Yes, he did hurt himself once doing this...put a gash on his head. In fact I've had to remove all but the plastic plants and his clay pot house to limit what can hurt him in the tank. In addition to that...and help him from NOT killing himself ...what I end up doing is wait till the pellets get wet and then squish them so they'll sink down. Then he'll swim over and eat them without a problem. Sometimes though, he'll swim up to the top while I'm squishing the pellets, grab one..and then shoot back down in a flash. The result of this is a small wave coming up and out of the tank that gets everything all wet. In other words i'm practically hand feeding this fish and frankly I dont have time for this every night and getting quite bothered with the process. Sometimes I tell him..."OK theres the food. If you're hungry...go get it." But most of the time he wont. Or if he does, I'm likely to hear a "Thunk" after a while. Couple of times he didnt eat for two days...until I "fed" him again.

My other fish eat the same food and dont have this problem so whats up with the Frontosa and how do i get him UNscared of his food?

Thanks
John

**SmokeyCFH** · 06-03-2011, 03:35 AM

hmmm, thats an interesting one ya got there. Try different foods, try some flake and see if he's okay with that since it floats and falls. see if he trips out over that and then put both foods in and start lowering the amount of flake until he has no issue's with the staple. Good luck man.

**Brhino** · 06-03-2011, 02:09 PM

I agree, I would try changing up the food. New Life Spectrum makes a cichlid formula. I haven't tried it, but I use some of their other stuff and it sinks if you just hold it under the water with your fingers for a second.

**Lady Hobbs** · 06-03-2011, 02:16 PM

Perhaps he'd like a sinking pellet better. I have blood parrots that will not eat any floating food. It has to sink for them to eat it.

**SmokeyCFH** · 06-03-2011, 05:42 PM

Originally Posted by Lady Hobbs

Perhaps he'd like a sinking pellet better. I have blood parrots that will not eat any floating food. It has to sink for them to eat it.

Do you use massivore sinking pellets? those are so expensive! $60 for a 2.2lb bag, its all some of my fish and turtle will eat, as the owner of my LFS said to me, massivore is like crack, once they taste it, its all they'll want.

**Crispy** · 06-03-2011, 10:33 PM

my fronts will ONLY eat sinking pellets. I use "hikari gold sinking". it's a purple bag.

since fronts come from deep waters, they would never eat off the surface in the wild. some people say fronts can get 'float' from taking in too much air when eating from the surface, but it's not 100% proven fact. I would just switch to a sinking pellet.

**SmokeyCFH** · 06-04-2011, 01:57 AM

I've got a 6" frontosa that eats floating cichlid pellets from the surface of the water...he rarely goes for the sinking massivores i feed the ripsaw cat.

**papa5hark** · 02-22-2012, 07:28 PM

you could try actinic lighting. i've found that it helps my fronts feel more at home.

and as said above. New Life Spectrum sinking pellets will probabbly do the trick. its what i feed and my frontosa's love it!