My apisto cacatuoides will only eat frozen blood worms

[Harry Muscle]

Help ... my apisto cacatuoides will only eat frozen blood worms

I have a female apisto cacatuoides that refuses to eat anything but frozen blood worms. I got her about two weeks ago and for the first week I didn't see her eating anything. It got to a point where her belly started looking sunken in. That's when I seperated her from the rest of the community tank in a breeding net so I could feed her directly. So far I have tried three different pellet and flake foods from New Life Spectrum, Hikari wafers, freeze dried blood worms and finally frozen blood worms. The only food she is eating is the frozen blood worms. She will on occasion try the freeze dried ones but spits them out. As for the flakes and pellets she doesn't even try them as if she didn't even realize that they are edible. Btw, at no point did she show any signs of being sick, just not eating and sunken belly, but the fins are fully erect, etc.

Now that she's been eating the frozen blood worms for a few days she's back to being alert and healthy, however, my problem now is how do I get her used to eating other foods. Unfortunately I can't afford to keep feeding her frozen foods since she's in a community tank and I would have to feed the whole tank frozen foods in order to make sure she get's some. Any help is highly appreciated.

Thanks,
Harry

 

[Mike Wise]

It is not really unusual for some apisto to not eat dry foods (A. cacatuoides is not usually one of them, however). I would just feed frozen food 2 - 3 times each week. Mix it with dry foods. This usually trains fish to eat flakes & pellets. Even if she never accepts dry food, she will do fine with eating frozen 2 - 3 time per week. I'm sure she will find other food somewhere if she is really hungry.