Making Feeding Entertaining And Enjoyable

[DarkEntity]

Well as the topic states, this is something ive only started to try, basically I hide meat under the gravel in a couple of places, so its just sticking out, have some sitting under the wood etc.

Basically the idea is to make the Polypterus/Ctenopoma's and Plecs forage for their food rather than them waiting for it to drop in front of them.

As i said ive only been trialling this for a couple of days but it seems like they are enjoying it, especially the Polypterus who seems to really enjoy sniffing out his meal and then doing what can best be described as a "death roll" with it...(ive seen this twice since i got my Poly) Since i started this my little L387 is out and about more and so is the Poly who will now dash to the front of the tank when i enter the room.

Before anyone says omg, think of that rotting away if they don't find it, i have a set number of meat pieces, if after 2 hours i check and its not eaten its removed (although that is becoming an adventure of its own, ive never quiet realised until tonight how fast a Polypterus can move - when it wants to - got rather a fright to see his head poking through some leaves as my fingers lifted out the one remaining uneaten lump of meat (could have sworn he was busy at the other end when my hand entered the tank.....)

Just wondered if anyone else had tried this?

 

[the_evil_duboisi]

I used to just feeding floating foodsticks and krill to my polyps, they staved until they eventually learned....

It didn't take too long. In some cases they fed from my hand on day 1.

 

[kewskills]

thats a good idea, never tried it myself

 

[invader]

That's really cool. It's really nice to see fish in their natural state "hunting" for food, instead of waiting impatiently at the top of the water!

 

[iSnail]

Must be pretty fun to watch them "hunt" their food. My DPs are so trained that they would dash for my pipette whether there is food or not Annoying sometimes - they would let the food drop and still attack my pipette However.... I love watching them hunting down snails (ouch for the snails )

 

[starrynightxxi]

only thing that troubles me with that is making sure that all he fish are actually getting enough food. my senny's no competition for my mogurnda, though i suppose if the food's big enough, it'll slow the goby down...

 

[jayjay]

What type of meat are you talking about?

 

[DarkEntity]

I use Tiger Prawns chopped into chunks or Cockle/Mussle or sometime cooked Prawns

 

[Maximus]

It's a great idea

When I had 4 dels in my 100 (by themselfs at the time) I used to throw a certain number of
frozen prawns about the place, make em' work a bit

 

[the_evil_duboisi]

Oh. Now I know what you guys mean

To me(IMO), a polyp taking food from my fingers is better than waiting on tenderhooks till it finds that piece of food I gave it. I mean, it's cute, I like snakes, and to me this is the close I get to hand-feeding one(I can't own a snake because my family hates them!)

On the other hand, it would be nicer if CICHLIDS behaved the way they do in the wild. Like, you spend time and energy busily decorating a Malawi Mbuna tank, only to find they don't use the caves and are always begging for food!