# Green Terror Food



## Amber's Geo (Aug 23, 2005)

HI,

This is my first post on this forum







so please be gentle ..

I have a Green Terror who seems to be particularly fussy about what he eats, what he really likes to eat is small fish! When I first got him 5 or 6 months ago he was an eating machine, devouring anything from Blood Worms to regular flake in vast quantity if allowed.

I made the mistake of introducing some small Neon's one day to add some colour and he'd consumed them within seconds! He has since paid a visit to another tank in which he was set upon by a significantly larger Geophagus, after a couple of weeks he was moved to a tank on his own primarily to recover from the Geo's beating but since then he's shown no real interest in either bloodworm or flake despite looking and behaving normally. This has been the case for approx 4 weeks until recently when I dropped a couple of small fish in (I hate myself) and he went mental, they were gone in minutes, this morning out of curiosity I dropped a small piece of chicken in and whoof, gone! a bit of flake / blood worm and nothing. I've also tried Krill which after much chewing gets spat out.

Any thoughts or advice gratefully received.

Mike


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## benJii (Feb 17, 2005)

try brine shrimp, my GT love them

i also wouldnt be feeding him chicken, they can be bad for fish


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## polomax24 (Jun 14, 2005)

Hmmm.... Another GT refuses to eat problem. My GT used to refuse to eat anything for 4 weeks when he was young. One day, he just decided to eat. Now, he is about 8" and super healthy.

Most GTs are imported. Try to deworm it before introduce to the main tank. My GT had a big worm came out from his anus after deforming.


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## Puff (Feb 14, 2005)

my young GT wouldnt eat for over a month, this week he's only just started eating in front of me, definitely starting to look better.


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## King Oscar (Apr 5, 2005)

:welcome: 
welcome to the club man


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## benJii (Feb 17, 2005)

King Oscar said:


> :welcome:
> welcome to the club man
> [snapback]1166626[/snapback]​


and what doez that have to do with this topic









thats strange that all of you have eating probs with GT's, now my GT was marked as a "wild caught", and he ate the first day, maybe that has something to do with it?


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## rbp 4 135 (Mar 2, 2004)

hes new, so welcome. try some live black worms or red worms, petsmart has them, but so should your lfs. Plus worms are full of protien (sp?) dosent look right for some reason


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## SirOneEighty (Nov 20, 2004)

My GT never had an eating problem. Always ate just fine, and grew slow as molassas just like most GTs.


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## Amber's Geo (Aug 23, 2005)

I agree with the you, I'm not happy feeding him chicken long term but if it will get him going short term ... that said I dragged myself outside in the rain and dug up some earth worms, wow, he loved them. Whilst I was at it I introduced a few of my other fish to earth worms and they went down a storm. Mike


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## Amber's Geo (Aug 23, 2005)

'8" and super healthy'

That's what I want from mine, currently he's 3" and a bit skinny







but looks great with a big character to match. Mike


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## lemmywinks (Jan 25, 2004)

Ever try any predator pellets? Hikari makes a great pellet for predatory fish. Normally, I wouldnt recomend preadatory pellets for a green terror because they are part of the Aequidens genus and they do need some vegis in thier diet as well... but since that may be all your GT eats, give it a shot. Maybe once it's weaned on those pellets it will take other types of pellets as well









Also, not really on topic... But what species of geophagus do you own? just the Brasiliensis in your avitar?


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## Amber's Geo (Aug 23, 2005)

[quote name='Puff' date='Aug 24 2005, 06:09 PM']
my young GT wouldnt eat for over a month, this week he's only just started eating in front of me, definitely starting to look better.
[snapback]1166311[/snapback]​[/quote

You make it sound as though yours was shy but finally gave in and decided to 'eat' in front of you :laugh:

Does yours have any tank mates? mine's currently on his / her own, previous attempts at company have been









Mike


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## Amber's Geo (Aug 23, 2005)

King Oscar said:


> :welcome:
> welcome to the club man
> [snapback]1166626[/snapback]​


Cheers Dud, nice hat!


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## Amber's Geo (Aug 23, 2005)

lemmywinks said:


> Ever try any predator pellets? Hikari makes a great pellet for predatory fish. Normally, I wouldnt recomend preadatory pellets for a green terror because they are part of the Aequidens genus and they do need some vegis in thier diet as well... but since that may be all your GT eats, give it a shot. Maybe once it's weaned on those pellets it will take other types of pellets as well
> 
> 
> 
> ...


HI, I haven't as yet but I will give it a go, I've tried all the usual Cichlid foods, I've tried peas etc but I end up fishing them out the following day. The only things he responds to is either alive, poultry or earth worms ...

Just the one geophagus Brasiliensis at the moment, a spectaculer 6/7" fish, the pic does him no justice. He was one of two but the fighting got out of hand so he's on his own now.

Mike


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## rbp 4 135 (Mar 2, 2004)

hey lemmy whats the name of those pellets, my dovii dosent really like the normal ones, so i am currently feeding hin all frozen stuff, and it is a bit pricy, espically between him and the rtc.







sorry to be off topic. glad to hear your gt liked the worms.


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## lemmywinks (Jan 25, 2004)

Hikari carnivore sticks...


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## elTwitcho (Jun 22, 2004)

It may be related to him being a juvenile. My GT was pretty finicky when he was younger and even went a month without eating after a tank move (I suspect he was clearing internal parasites though) but nowadays that he's 5-6 inches SL he goes after everything without question. Any new foods I put in he swallows without a second thought and I even have him trying to eat freeze dried krill which he repeatedly spits out, tries eating again, realizes he hates it, swims around a bit and tries eating it again etc. As he's gotten bigger his apetite has just skyrocketed so I'd just be patient and try and get him eating nutritious foods as best you can in the mean time.


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## Amber's Geo (Aug 23, 2005)

elTwitcho said:


> It may be related to him being a juvenile. My GT was pretty finicky when he was younger and even went a month without eating after a tank move (I suspect he was clearing internal parasites though) but nowadays that he's 5-6 inches SL he goes after everything without question. Any new foods I put in he swallows without a second thought and I even have him trying to eat freeze dried krill which he repeatedly spits out, tries eating again, realizes he hates it, swims around a bit and tries eating it again etc. As he's gotten bigger his apetite has just skyrocketed so I'd just be patient and try and get him eating nutritious foods as best you can in the mean time.
> [snapback]1167072[/snapback]​


Thanks,
It's clear from what everyone has said that these guys whilst young will go through periods of not eating, I guess they know what they are doing. The next question is tank mates, I tried a couple of 2" Tin Foil Barbs recently but no, had to return them to the bigger tank after an hour.
Mike


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## UK calvus (Aug 11, 2005)

I'll put together a cocktail of my dried Cichlid/catfish food for you to try, see which ones he prefers. I have some Hikari pellets which mine tolerate, but they go mad for the Tetra Doromin sticks....I have just bought some Carnivore flake as well, see if he goes for that.

Why do the Catfish prefer the Cichlid Food, and the Cichlids eat the Catfish food?


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## SirOneEighty (Nov 20, 2004)

My Carpintis will eat pretty much anything from live, to flakes, to krill, to worms...

But when it comes to pellets, he will ONLY eat Wardley Premium Cichlid Pellets MEDIUM size.

I like to have a steady diet of pellets since he doesn't really like peas or any other sort of vegetable matter. I supplement with all the others on a regular basis to keep him from getting too used to any one thing. But now I have a lot of Hikari Premium Cichlid Pellets to get rid of. Guess my buddy will be getting a bunch of free food for his Oscar.


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## Mettle (Dec 29, 2003)

My green terror when I had it was mainly fed on Nutrafin Max Cichlid Spirulina Sticks... I supplemented with a variety of frozen foods as well including bloodworms and krill. He never touched beefheart to my recollection. Towards the end he was also getting some Hikari Cichlid Gold as that's what I was feeding to my oscars...

He wasn't hard to feed but he also wasn't the voracious, bottomless pits my oscars are.

If ever having a lot of trouble feeding, some live foods are definitely the way to go. If you can find either feeder guppies or cheap tetras on sale, buy some of those and gut load them with some type algae/plant based foods like Nutrafin Max Spirulina Flake and then feed them to the green terror - he gets a little bit of plant matter in his diet, too. You've already discovered that worms can be a great addition to a cichlid diet. However be careful about any that you're picking out of the ground outside. If pesticides or fertilizers containing pesicides were used in the area the worms could be contaminated and could pose a threat to your fish... The only other live food I can suggest is gut loaded crickets. Get some crickets, feed them a bunch of veggies (romain or green leaf lettuce and other stuff like this) and then afterward feed them to your fish. My oscars love crickets - but my gt was always too cautious to get in the way of their eating and never got one.

Anyway. Those are my suggestions for you. Good luck!


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## Amber's Geo (Aug 23, 2005)

UK calvus said:


> I'll put together a cocktail of my dried Cichlid/catfish food for you to try, see which ones he prefers. I have some Hikari pellets which mine tolerate, but they go mad for the Tetra Doromin sticks....I have just bought some Carnivore flake as well, see if he goes for that.
> 
> Why do the Catfish prefer the Cichlid Food, and the Cichlids eat the Catfish food?
> [snapback]1167193[/snapback]​


Thanks dude.

The good lady is going to the local aquatics shop later so whilst there she's going to pick up a variety of foods.


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