Jack not eating, going on a week

[swifty]

I got a juvenile jack dempsey last saturday. He has been extremely shy (I'd only seen him once in the open, other than that he's hiding behind the java ferns) and has yet to eat. I put 3 skirt tetras with him on sunday to act as dither fish, but they didn't work. One of the skirts was a female, and was scattering eggs. The tetras were eating them, and occasionally the jack would grab some. That's the only reason I wasn't too overly worried about him not eating, but that was on sunday/monday.

Going on 7 days, and he's yet to eat. I tried frozen mysis shrimp, frozen blood worms, and NLS cichlid pellets. The NLS pellets literally rolled on top of his head, and landed in the sand. I was thinking of trying some hikari or omega one pellets, but I'd rather have all my fish on the same food.

In the last day or two he has seemed to come out several times, but still isn't eating and is nowhere near as active as my firemouth.

He's in a 20g long growout alone with 3 tetras, temp @ 79f, with an AC50, of which I used the media from one of my filters on my 29g. He did seem to suffer a small injury when he was being netted (the small white spot you can see on that picture taken when I got him) but has since gotten smaller and is nearly gone. I'm hoping he was just recovering from the injury and will start coming out and eating, but looking to see any of you dempsey owners's opinions.

 

[CalebZachary]

Are all tank parameters good? He'll eat eventually. I'd keep putting pellets in there.

 

[haleybeth30]

I just got a 5 or 6 in. severum on CL. He would not come out and eat with the others. Super stressed during the move. It's been about 6 days he finally came out and ate today. Also, he would hide if anyone came close to the tank. Yesterday, after failing to get him a bite again, I walked away, but kept an eye on him and saw him get one I had dropped into a plant. Point is.. maybe he is eating, but you didn't see it. I have a juvie dempsey too. He's really skittish at feeding time. Darts in grabs one, darts away to hide.. repeat. If you're sure the spot is injury don't worry about, if not just watch to make sure it doesn't change/get bigger. His dark color tells me he's stressed out a bit, but I think he'll adjust in his own time

 

[FLAMINGBOLT]

Hey, can you help me find out if my balloon ram Is male /female

 

[swifty]

Yeah the spot is pretty much gone today, but he's still hiding. I was fearing this, because during my research before I got him I read a lot of people saying that their jacks were the most shy fish they ever had. There was a few though that said they had overly aggressive and outgoing jacks, so I was hoping to get lucky. Guess I didn't.

 

[Plecos4596]

It should start slowly getting better and better mine was like that for a little over a week and then they start coming out more and more an eating and everything.

 

[swifty]

Yeah I'm going to give it 1 or maybe 2 more weeks to see if he'll liven up.