Loaches Online Forum

My 4(ish) year old blue gourami and bolivian ram basically eat anything I throw in the tank. Ever since I purchased New Life Spectrum garlic pellets my fish will not eat it besides these two fish.

My clown loaches patrol for food all the time and skip over these pellets.

How do I get them to eat the new food?

Thanks,
Stephen

Just keep at it. Mine have been eating NLS for years with no problem
Are the pellets large enough for them to see? They sort of only see the 2mm pellets, even the smallest clown I have.

yeah my clown loach dont like nls either. They put in their mouth and spit them out. I guess i spoiled them with live/frozen food. But they do like hikari monster pellets.

Mine are not keen on these either. As for seeing, my fish locate food with their barbels.

Mine are eating JMC catfish pellets and Tetra Prima avidly (among many other items in a very varied diet).

They can definitely identify the pellets; they just are uninterested.

I did an experiment and threw the older food in, such as flakes, freeze dried blood worms, and sinking shrimp pellets. They went crazy over the freeze dried blood worms and all five came to the surface to eat them (and clicking)! They were iffy on the flakes, and I only noticed one clown loach eating the shrimp pellets. The two original ones always used to eat the shrimp pellets, so I thought this was odd.

Today, I'm hoping to return the NLS pellets for something else.

What fish food do virtually all clown loaches enjoy?

Try frozen blood worms. I get them used to pellets by mixing the pellets with the frozen blood worms and over time just put less blood worms and more pellets. Mine are currently on carnivore pellets.

I feed my clown loach all live/frozen food. They eat aggressively and sometime splash water on my face.

redshark1 wrote: As for seeing, my fish locate food with their barbels.

Yes, I am aware of that but I noticed with my baby clown loach while in quarantine he would just not see the small pellets and would go crazy around pushing the other fish he was in as he could smell but couldn't "see" where the food went. I am having a lot more success and peace with larger pellets the clowns can see straight away.
Try dropping larger pellets and small 1mm NLS pellet in the tank and you'll see the clown loaches in particular locating the larger ones first and the small ones just passing them by. They of course like any bottom fish will sift the substrate for left overs so it's not like they won't find the small food eventually.

And as a matter of fact, my loaches wouldn't touch frozen food or any stuff like that for ages. I even opened a thread for that here one time. I had to force it on them and stop the dry food. So fish not liking particular food is just them not being used to it yet. Once they start eating it, they line up waiting for it like it's the most delicious thing.

Mine eat anything and everything offered.

Lately they have been enjoying freeze-dried Gammarus after they have been soaked in hot water and air squeezed from them so they sink. These are very cheap on eBay and do not have the sharp rostrum of other "shrimp" which I at least appreciate.

I only discovered these recently but feel they may be good for the digestive system due to the high level of roughage they contain.

My clowns were not fussy eaters but they really enjoyed earthworm flavored pellets, Tetramin tabimin; shrimp pellets ( a couple kinds) & several wafers. To help them get in the veggie mood I poked holes in zucchini (courgette) slices & inserted bits of any pellet or wafer. It's just a matter of time until they sample what food is on offer.