Training Bangai cardinal to eat pellets

[evolutionZ]

Hey guys, i have 2 banggai in my 65g tank for about 3 weeks already, they eat frozen brine shrimp straight out of my feeding syring (they even peck at the stick before i pump out food for them), all my other fishes are on pellets now but they just eat and spat them out whenever i feed the whole tank.

They are very healthy now and im wondering if i can just starve them for a few days to see if they accept pellets?

Im feeding NLS thera A which i hope will be their staple diet.

thanks!

 

[falconut]

Mine eats some flake food, but really eats frozen mysis and brine. In the begining it only ate frozen. Took a few months for him to even try the flakes. Haven't seen him touch the pellets.

I had a different one years ago and it ate flakes too, but took a year before he took to flakes. They seem to be fish that take a while to switch. I personally wouldn't stop feeding the frozen, just keep adding some flakes or pellets in with it. Good luck.

 

[sanchoy]

Mine will rather die then eat pellets.

 

[evolutionZ]

gosh, seems like they are hard to train.. mine eat and spat them out every single time.. guess i got to stick to feeding them frozen food.

 

[indyjaco]

Mine will only eat Mysis. He will sample flakes then spit them back out.

They are very entertaining when Mysis does hit the water.

 

[anbosu]

Mine hid and ate pods I guess for the first month or so I had it. The tank it is in is primarily fed pellets so it eats them with the rest of the fish now.

 

[SNAKEMANVET]

My pair would not touch anything but mysis.I tried other foods but they would just spit it back out.

 

[dixiedog]

Same here, mysis or nothing, even when half starved. I got rid of him.

 

[Megatrev62]

Mine eats anything frozen, even homemade fare. I wish it would eat pellet, and would love to know also those who did it.

 

[Patrick Cox]

Are these finicky fish wild caught or tank bred?

 

[E Rosewater]

Mine are tank bred, and only eat mysis.

 

[Patrick Cox]

Mine are tank bred, and only eat mysis.

That's strange. I have spoken with ORA on various fish and my understanding is that they feed pellets so I would expect that their Bangai's are fed the same, but maybe not. I used to have one and it easily ate flakes but I wasn't feeding pellets at the time so not sure about that.

 

[phoenixstar89]

those bangaii probably didn't come from ORA. There's currently only one major supplier of captive raised bangaii. I picked up 5 of them about a year and a half ago and had the same problem with pellets. I've still got 3 of them and the only thing they'll eat other than frozen for me is dry cyclopeeze flakes. I've tried all the nls size pellets and they spit out all of them. love the cyclopeeze flakes though.

 

[SNAKEMANVET]

Mine are also captive bred and even the ones I raised would only eat live newly hatched brine.Then when a little older they would eat full size brine and frozen Mysis.

 

[evolutionZ]

i met a reefer who managed to train it to eat pellets.. he had no idea they were hard to train.. his banggai cardinal starved for a few days and then accepted pellets.. how lucky of him.

 

[anbosu]

I actually thought mine had died since it was hiding for a month after it was first put into the display. I truly have no idea what it was eating during that time period but it eats the 1mm NLS pellets now.

 

[aquaph8]

Mine wouldn't eat them until recently, took me five years before he started eating them. They just don't realize that it's food.

 

[Cirenus]

I would suggest mixing the pellet with whatever food they prefer. Feed it together, and then slowly reduce the amount of the other food till it is just pellets.

 

[Triggerfish]

have kept a couple of them over the years.. only ate meaty foods.
keep an eye on the pair , one is likely to kill the other off over time unless they are mated

 

[J2T]

Oddly enough my pair only eat frozen meaty foods during lights on but will eat pellets if I drop some in after lights out