My multies won't eat

[Paulochromis]

Hi all,

My wife and I bought three Neolamprologus multifasciatus on Saturday from St. George. I got a couple of small bristlies too. They're all settled into an AR-380 with shells, barnacles and an artificial log for hiding. I'm pretty sure that the water quality's ok, but will double check when I get home tonight.

We're feeding them HBH Veggie Flake (small amounts, ground up) but they don't seem to be interested. I intend to contact the shop where I got them to see what they were being fed there, but of course they're closed Sunday & Monday.

Any ideas?

Cheers,

[Josh]

My multies are never interested in vege flake, but eat most other flake foods. It may just take a while for them to adjust to your food

Josh

[CThompson]

As Josh said, they are not vegetarians, so the flake you fed them is not appropriate. However, a fish doesn’t know what is in the flake food fed to them, so they still should have eaten it anyway.

So their not eating may be a sign, but then again maybe not. Give them a chance to settle down/in, if no luck say after three days, try some live food to stimulate their appetite.

Best dry food to use is NLS, a small pellet food.

I've got hundreds of these fish, send me a PM if you want to purchase some.

[Bruce]

I feed Sera Flora flake with no problems whatsoever. They are a fish that lives in the bottom layer of the tank. Try mashing the flakes and then dipping them underwater so that they sink. They will not take food off the surface. Especially not in a high tank which I think yours is.

Bruce

[CThompson]

I feed Sera Flora flake with no problems whatsoever.  They are a fish that lives in the bottom layer of the tank.  Try mashing the flakes and then dipping them underwater so that they sink.  They will not take food off the surface.  Especially not in a high tank which I think yours is.

Bruce

←

G’day Bruce,

These fish ARE meat eaters. The reason for your successful appearing results of feeding vegi flakes without issue is that most “vegetable” based foods have as their first ingredients meat (believe it or not). One well known vegetable flake food has actually changed the order of their listed ingredients (the last I took note), but I’d bet my bottom dollar that the actual order remains the same.

There are internal differences between a vegetarian (they still need their protein though) and a meat eater, principally the length of the intestine where the food is digested (to my lay-mans understanding). A Vegetarian fish needs a vegetable based food, and a meat eater needs a food with a meaty origin, in order for their internals to correctly process what is passing through them. They may appear okay to you, but you can’t see what is going on inside them. African cichlids are true opportunists, the reason there are so many different types is that they have found a niche to exist in, and evolved to fill that area, but they will all eat what is presented to them.

People will have “mystery” deaths of fish such as mbuna when fed a food too high in protein. They will come out and just find a fish dead on the bottom of the tank (particularly the dominate fish who gets more than his fair share). It has happened to me, and I have just chalked it up to “one of those things”. But when I eventually wondered if it was because the food I was giving it was the wrong sort, and feed more appropriately, I have not had another death.

Feeding meat to a vego is wrong, and feeding vegi to a meat eater is equally wrong, the end result will be dictated by the toughness of the individual species, and they will very likely still look okay up until you find them dead. But why throw a variable into the mix that you can’t predict when there are foods out there that are MORE appropriate.

NLS can be feed equally correctly to vegetarian and a meat eater, and to my knowledge this is the only dry food on the market where this is so.

Craig