Spitting out flakes in the morning

[confused_aquarist]

So this is going to be another one in my continual series of newbie questions.
My fish are spitting out flakes (all of them), they've been doing it for months on end.
I feed my fish at morning and at night, and at first they have big appetite, but once done eating a few they would all start spitting.
This happens a lot more often in the morning, and some would even refuse to eat altogether. They eat a lot more at night.
I don't think this is due to overfeeding because when I feed them bbs after the flakes they would all start eating again and they eat as much as I feed.
These are killifish, they're omnivorous and would accept carnivore flakes, veggie flakes, algae just that they spit them out after eating some. Which forces me to feed bbs daily.
Females (all 14 of them) are always plump with eggs, the only alpha male at the moment (~9mo old) is neither skinny nor fat, just as average as a fish can get.
Are they considered somewhat anorexic? I'm wondering if this had to do with a protozoan breakout I had a few months back.
The fry, which are raised in another tank, never spit out any of the flakes, so it's very strange.

 

[MaloK]

You are spoiling them, The primary suspect is the quality of the flakes. Check for any signs of mold, discoloration, or musty odor.

Do you soak the fakes a little before giving them ?

If every time I spat my broccoli, mom would give me a chocolate bar. You know what I would do. Loll.

Try to skip a meal from time to time to see if it makes them start to appreciate it better.

 

[Magnum Man]

as @MaloK implied, it could be the texture of dry flakes, also perhaps they aren't conforming to the shapes of their bellies yet... fish will often rasp foods across the rough roof of their mouths ( their teeth ) when they spit out foods, to scrape off smaller particles of food...

I have just started feeding flake foods, they haven't been something I typically like to feed, and when I do feed them now, I crush them into micro flakes, and they are added with other types of foods

 

[GaryE]

Pharyngeal teeth... it's how they chew.

I have kept killies for 35 years, and no longer feed them flake. Some species - Fundulopanchax and Aplocheilus will eat flake, but most are like me in McDonalds - they have to be starving to eat that mulm.

My annulatus ate freshly hatched brine shrimp, other small live foods when I could get them, decapsulated brine shrimp cysts, krill fines, grasshopper powder, etc. They are insectivores, and like both roughage, and buglike food. That surface hugging behaviour?

It's bug hunting.

They're touchy little fish, neither the hardest nor the easiest to keep. But you aren't spoiling them if you stick to what they eat in nature.

I have Epiplatys huberi here - adults I caught and 2 generations following. None will eat flake unless I feed them after I've been away for a week. They'll go hungry rather than to eat even the best processed fishfoods.

 

[confused_aquarist]

Very strange! I would’ve thought that flake foods were the best- balanced, easy to swallow and especially formulated for smaller species. Guess I’ll keep feeding them live food if it be that they’d rather go hungry than eat flake. What I find is that they always seem to eat the flake until half full then stop but I couldn’t tell if they were already full or not. They eat as much bbs as I feed them I think I’m going to try gut loading bbs since it’s the only live food I can access.

 

[confused_aquarist]

I have kept killies for 35 years, and no longer feed them flake. Some species - Fundulopanchax and Aplocheilus will eat flake, but most are like me in McDonalds - they have to be starving to eat that mulm.

I have to say that I'm a big McDonald's fan and it's one of those times where I forget that fish are not human. If given NO risks then I would eat solely potato fry for all meals, all day but instead I actively avoid them and eat a well-balanced diet I guess they don't know so they won't eat something just because it's good for them.
One exception is when I give them medicated flake. You would think they would hate it but somehow they just know it's good for them and still swallow it no problem- but only when they're sick.

 

[GaryE]

I have never given medicated flake to killies - I don't know there. I'm still puzzled at the sickness you observe. I have long lived, breeding killies and haven't treated for anything but external parasites in at least three decades.

But it's taste and texture that seem to matter with foods. I do find many will eat dried bugs, or decapsulated artemia cysts. It's the mixes that don't appeal. Most killies, like yours, are specialized bug hunters with a preference for mosquitoes.

I'm not the healthiest eater as a human (but Mcdonalds is boring and bland to me), but I figure my fish don't get to choose. Even the fish that love flake get very little, as I see them prone to obesity with too much. For fish, putting on too much fat is fatal. As well, a fish like annulatus eats bugs, wings, exoskeleton and all, and most prepared foods lack fibre.

I would love to see killies be more popular. For one thing, so most are vulnerable to climate change, it might ensure their short term survival at least for us to see them. But the sticking point will always be nutrition. They don't adapt well to convenience foods.

 

[Innesfan]

Most medicated flakes contain garlic as an enticer, which seems to work with your gang. But like @GaryE, I've never fed/treated any killies for internal parasites, just occasional external. I think you may be unnecessarily medicating.

Some of my killies eat flakes, others do not. Presently my A. sp. Lobaye fry relish them; my F. filamentosus fry ignore them.

 

[confused_aquarist]

Most medicated flakes contain garlic as an enticer, which seems to work with your gang. But like @GaryE, I've never fed/treated any killies for internal parasites, just occasional external. I think you may be unnecessarily medicating.

Some of my killies eat flakes, others do not. Presently my A. sp. Lobaye fry relish them; my F. filamentosus fry ignore them.

So in my defense I've been medicating only fish with confirmed hexamita/spironucleus in microscopic samples by isolating them and feeding metronidazole flake (some recover while others don't). I'm already scared to create resistant strain, so I'd rather not treat fish that don't have symptoms, given that hexamita IME is extremely difficult to eradicate anyway. I want to keep the treatments to a minimum, but this is also knowing that FOR SURE the pathogen hasn't been eradicated so I have to repeat when necessary. I know this sounds ridiculous, but given the presence of multiple pathogens in my tank (some unknown external parasite, plus mycobacterium) the stress level is probably just too high for the fish to manage hexamita naturally, I think. This is with weekly 2 50% water changes and UV sterilization. I'm still trying to solve the external parasite/mycobacteria issue.

Speaking of which-
I believe I'm finally getting closer to the truth of this series of problems! @GaryE
On the good side, none of my fish are flashing anymore. They stopped after flubendazole, and I have to say that this was pure guess work because I still don't know what the gill pathogen is.
Yesterday though, another killie came down ill with anorexia, and this one also had the swaying motion like the last one:

Spasms, frequent gill scratching, and lost appetite following Prazipro dosage

Another panic moment. Since purchase of these killifish half a year ago, they have always had occasional gill scratchings, but I have decided to delay treatment until all of the fry are housed with adults, which is planned for next month. However one of the juveniles is bullied and now sick...

www.fishforums.net

I think the swaying dance movement is due to an itching intestine. I managed to find 1 hexamita on 1 fresh fecal microscopic slide from this killie so it's probably still in the early stages but given how unreliable metronidazole is in nonfeeding fish I am not completely hopeful it will be cured.

It's interesting because the very 1st killie that I managed to save with metronidazole also showed with only a few flagellates per slide, only in a few fecal samples not all of them so you'd think it wasn't all that severe. However it had all of the classic symptoms of Malawi bloat like bloat, floating, prolapses, swim bladder issue (took 3 weeks for it to be able to swim), anorexia/white poop, etc. Now that I think about it there were also 2 types of swaying motions, snaking both horizontally and vertically. It was also flashing, though now I know this is unrelated.

 

[confused_aquarist]

I really wonder what it is that makes certain fish eat flakes while others not. For annulatus I have no problem getting fry to accept anything flake or powder or pellet. They get less enthusiastic when I move them with the adults. I think this has to do with intestinal fauna/levels of parasite etc.

 

[GaryE]

Can you check the slides for Mycobacter marinum?

 

[confused_aquarist]

I cannot. There are too many equipments needed and none are being sold. What I can do though is dissect internal organ soon after death to check on microscope for gross view, if the decomposition isn't too far gone.
I couldn't do this with the last individual because it was already spoiling, but I did manage to find a cyst/tubercle in muscle tissue, this cannot be worms, etc. because the fish was raised from egg not wild-caught. I don't see snails, worms, etc. in my tank
As an update, the metronidazole isn't helping at all, with the fish becoming even more anorexic!
Holistically I am fairly convinced that it is tb. The current sick fish has had mucous covering mouth since introducing to adult tank 2 mo ago, which is probably due to weakened immune system.

 

[GaryE]

TB is not common in wild caughts, but is epidemic on many farms. It is hard to stop transmission via eggs - I tried using UV light with some Melanotaenia duboulayi eggs. When they reached adulthood, in a single species tank with no contact with other fish, they died of tb.

It's everywhere and there is no cure. Fish don't necessarily develop it if exposed, but if they do, it's only a matter of time. It isn't completely antibiotic resistant, but a six month course of an antibiotic cocktail isn't going to work for a small fish.

If it's what you were dealing with, it would be the first time I have heard of it with a killie. They seem remarkably resistant to it.

 

[seaweeds]

I have fishes that spit out flakes before. I used antibiotics. They got better and start eating again. Your fishes either got sick, you used too much medication/doing something to your tank, or they saw fishes getting killed left and right and got afraid.

edit: That last bit is true. Happen a few time for me to recognize it. Fish got suspicious of you when other fishes die over and over when they are there in tank. They might even get aggressive. Probably tapped into their survival instinct. You medicated fishes enough time and when they see something odds in other fishes that they suspected of being sick, they'll harass that fish.

 

[GaryE]

I have fishes that spit out flakes before. I used antibiotics. They got better and start eating again. Your fishes either got sick, you used too much medication/doing something to your tank, or they saw fishes getting killed left and right and got afraid.

edit: That last bit is true. Happen a few time for me to recognize it. Fish got suspicious of you when other fishes die over and over when they are there in tank. They might even get aggressive. Probably tapped into their survival instinct. You medicated fishes enough time and when they see something odds in other fishes that they suspected of beung sick, they'll harass that fish.

I'd question all the bits you say are true. It's not very clear, but are you suggesting they spit out (ie chew) their food when they think another fish is sick? It's certain that fish, like birds, will often attack a sick or injured shoal mate. But it's quite a leap to say they blame the fishkeeper or become suspicious. I think by nature, they are wary and if they see tankmate after tankmate (of their own species if they are shoalers) vanishing, they suspect a predator is at work. Until you get the tank set up right for the species, they'll suspect that anyway. Small fish live with fear, and one of their biggest defences is habitat. If you get the set up right, they settle in.

For the OP's annulatus, they are surface oriented. I expect they like to live under overhanging vegetation, in shaded areas safe from fishing birds. Those areas have tangles of roots they can dart into if danger appears. So they like a tank with plants to the surface, or floating plants. That water probably moves, but is calmer along the bans where the plant roots are. So they like good filtration. And there, they hunt for bugs and spiders from the plants above.

You may have solved something with antibiotics, but which ones? And what did you solve? It was more than likely coincidence. I think it's very important for aquarists to avoid using antibiotics unless they know exactly what they are treating. Antibiotics are very valuable and very overused, in the hobby and elsewhere.