African Butterflyfish Feeding Options

[*Diego*]

Hi all

My boyfriend and I have (among our hundreds of fish ) an African Butterfly who lives in a 10 G tank by himself right now. We've had him a few months. It is a male. His name's Izzy...anyway, we started feeding Izzy live mealworms every 3-4 days - we would open the tank and plunk one in, and he'd zoom after it and (quite amazingly) rip 'er to shreds

Anyway, in the last few weeks, Izzy has gotten incredibly skittish. If, at any point you walk near his tank, he zooms to the bottom. If at first he is not startled, as soon as you crack open the lid to the tank he zooms to the bottom, and won't come up. As such, he wouldn't see/come up to eat his mealworm.

We've been turning the filter off, plunking in the mealworm in and walking away (tank light remains off at all times). We've been getting quite a few mealies off the tank bottom, over the past few weeks, so we aren't sure if he's eating.

We have no idea why he's gotten so skittish.
Awful as it is, I was considering buying a few neon tetras (or similar sized fish) and putting them in the tank, and seeing if Izzy's natural hunting behaviour would allow him to eat when he wanted...

Any suggestions?

 

[Fella]

Do you have any floating plants at all? It can help them settle.

With mine he used to sit in the corner all day, and could simply be fed sinking pellets (they floated for a few seconds before sinking).

 

[*Diego*]

Hey! Thanks for the reply...hadn't thought of sinking pellets...something to give a shot...
And yeah, he's got a lot of plant cover. I'm tempted to rename him Chicken...bleep...but, you know....

 

[fishfantastic]

In my opinion a 10 gal tank is to small for an AFB. I feed mine crickets, flakes, flies, spiders and he eats blood worms when i feed the masses.

 

[Creature Seeker]

I have four ABF's and mine seem to hang half way down the tank by the filter while the lights on but are always quite eager to eat flake food and floating pellets in the morning so havn't had a lot of trouble feeding them although it was a little tricky to begin with.

I've found these fish very strange. When half way down the tank they also change colour to very pale. I've found them in all kinds of strange places in my tank. They seem happy though.

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