laetacara dorsigera not eating really

[uberape]

I bought three dorsigera for my 30 gallon and so far so, ok. There are two juveniles, one i hope will be female and a large definite male. The large male is a worry as he is not eating bloodworms and is very uninterested come feeding time, this is the opposite behaviour to the juveniles. I have seen him eating one worm but it takes him 5mins to swander to the feeding spot and once there, if there is even a blade of amazon sword between him and the worm he gives up. He does on the other hand eat roots from my amazon frogbit, infact he eats quite alot of these roots. Are they vegetarians once older? there also could be tetra eggs or unfertalised betta eggs in the roots i thought perhaps he likes these better but dont know, they are orangey red balls. Any info would be handy I have not had the opportunity to go back to the shop and query their feeding regime. I have tried cichlid pellets but even the juvies spit these. He is fine and colours up occasionally, totally responsive, maybe a little slow.

 

[gerald]

As long as he's eating something, and not showing abnormal rapid breathing or other stress signs, he may be OK. Older fish sometimes take longer to adapt to new unfamiliar foods. How long have you had them?

 

[uberape]

its been two weeks now. He did flick aggressively and i thought it was ick so i treated the tank then found out that my tap water had increased ph from 7 to 8 and started to lower the ph of water before adding with some co2 tabs. I thought this flicking was gone until literally 2 seconds ago when he did it again. he was totally fine flirting with one of the juveniles then he flicked aggressively and swam to the top of the tank. he stayed their for a second and swam back down and hes back to normal and relaxed. ill have to check the water at a shop i think, i have crappy little test strips that i no longer trust.

 

[uberape]

got him live bloodworms and hes eating them fine, they must have fed him live foods at the shop.