Strange eating pickiness

[SpyGuy]

I have a tank with a rainbow shark, an electric yellow cichlid, a couple of swordtail mollies, and a catfish. The cichlid and catfish are fairly recent additions (a few months ago), having acquired them when I bought a used tank. All the fish are healthy and get along fine.

Issue #1:

After I got the electric yellow, I would take some Hikari Gold Small Cichlid Pellets (floating style) and break them up to feed him. All the fish seemed to like those, but especially the yellow. So I bought a large bag of the pellets in the baby size so I could feed them without having to crush the larger pellets. I bought these baby pellets just a few days before we left on a one-week family vacation. When I fed them the baby pellets, the cichlid would gobble them up.

We had a friend house sit for us while we were out-of-town. When we returned, I tried feeding the baby pellets and the cichlid would take them in his mouth then spit them back out. He simply refused to eat them. But he'd gobble up the flake food that I put in the tank for the other fish. That was over a month ago and he still won't eat the pellets. Now he doesn't even try to take them in his mouth. He will approach them when they hit the water, then he snubs his nose at them.

Issue #2:

When I got the original fish (rainbow shark and mollies) I fed them Tetra Tropical Crisps. Never had a problem with any of the fish rejecting this food. Sometime last year, my wife was buying fish food and decided to buy Omega One Freshwater Flakes, because it was a little less expensive than the Tetra. The fish eat the new food just fine. My only complaint was that the flakes were very thin and fragile. So there would be a lot of food "dust" out of the container, and also the flakes would waterlog and sink fairly quickly. So when it came time to buy a new container of food this past weekend, I bought the Tetra Crisps again.

But the fish refuse to eat them. They will take them in their mouths then spit them back out. It's been several days and they just don't want to eat them. So I had been giving them some of the Omega Flakes that were left over. Each day I tried a few Tetra Crisps and the fish wouldn't eat them, so I gave them some Omega.

Yesterday, I tried feeding them only the Tetra Crisps. Still the same. I figured today, they'd be hungry and just eat the crisps, but they're still rejecting them. Even the rainbow shark, which has normally gobbled up everything.

What's going on?

 

[Kadoozey]

I don't know much but it sounds to me like your fish like the taste of their new foods better lol

 

[MattMal88]

I had the same thing happen with my king kong parrot. I bought the NLS sinking pellets and he would eat them no problem. Then I would feed omega one flakes to my other fish in the tank and he wouldn't mess with the flakes at all. Then one day he came up to the top and ate a few flakes and now he doesn't really eat the pellets he mainly goes for the flakes. I guess they find new favorites like we do when it comes to food.

 

[sinibotia]

Fish can go for a while without food- a lot longer than you would think. I usually leave my fishtanks unfed anytime I'm away if it's less than 2 weeks. So if you want to try to get them to eat the old food, you can starve them for a few days to a week, and see if they'll start eating it again; I've had some success with this (although that was with fish that decided they only wanted frozen food).

If you don't care either way if they eat the old food, then just stick with the new food. Omega One is a better brand of food anyway.

Another thing to try would be soaking the hikari pellets until they're soft. I've found this helps prevent the "spitting" problem that you describe.

One last thing- your stocking needs some work. How big is this tank? And what kind of catfish? Electric yellow cichlids should not be kept with any of the other fish you have. Rainbow sharks can be hit or miss as well in terms of being aggressive. I'm glad it's working out but at the very least I would be prepared with a plan to take care of any problems that arise.

 

[evil Nick]

Ive been going through the same thing with my gold veiled ram. He used to eat everything. the past few months he comes out when its feeding time with the others and proceeds to look at food, taste it and spit it out.
He never died or got extremely skinny so I didnt know what was going on. Thought maybe a parasite but its not that. I tried feeding my parasite medicated flakes but even those he spits out and they all go nuts for those. Even blood worms he spits out.

Finally I thought my Acara was bloated the other day and threw some peas in there and it was like a magnet how he swam to them and started ravaging them. The past week or so now I have been throwing a couple in and he rips them apart ravenously.

Not sure what is honestly up with him but its perplexing to say the least. I see him pecking at plants and decor so my thought process is he is eating baby snails and possibly algae since he wasnt dying.

Try the peas and see if maybe your fish is constipated and why its not eating.