Fish spitting out their food

[FrozenFins]

Hey,

I have just recentley switched to pellets for my fish and my female swordtail will go for the pellet, and then spit it out and then go for it again? Will she start eating them normally? if not how do I fix this problem? 

[Saltinthedesert]

I believe they are just breaking down the solid pieces. Not a problem as long as they finally ingest the food and pass it. 

[Sleepy]

You can also crunch the pellets down a bit in your fingers before throwing them in the tank

[Dandy Pearl]

Sleepy is on the right track. What we think of as a 'bite' may be too big for a fish. The size of the pellet may be just too big. If it looks like they want to eat it, crush it like sleepy said and you may have better luck. If that works, the next time you  buy food, buy smaller sizes. They are out there.

Good Luck!

[ange]

Agreed with other posters about the pellet likely being too large. One of my pet peeves on the Aquarium Co-Op website is that this blog recommends feeding the 1.5mm Xtreme pellets to GBRs instead of the Xtreme nano pellet, my smaller Bolivian ram (slightly larger than an adult GBR) often spits the 1.5mm pellets due to the size.

[PineSong]

I've heard Cory and others on YT describe giving pellets that are "too large" to fish so the fish eat them by carrying them around or repeatedly dropping it and picking it back up and taking multiple smaller bites from the pellet as it softens, etc.   It is actually like an enrichment activity if the fish is able to enjoy the activity of eating for a longer time or engage in natural behavior like picking at a food source over time.

You have to know your fish and the food in question--if you have fish that only eat from the surface or only mid water, you might not want to pollute the bottom of your tank with food large enough to get past them uneaten. If you're like me and you have fish that will pick up any crumbs that fall to the tank floor, you can relax and enjoy the sight of your tiny guppy carrying off a whole Vibrabite  "worm" to keep it away from tank mates while he waits for it to soften and take bites from. 

I've seen my white clouds do the same thing with a dried bloodworm, a frozen bloodworm or a brine shrimp--take it and run, so they can get bites out of it with less competition around. 

I don't believe that in nature my varieties of fish (platies, mollies, guppies, wcmms) only eat things that fit in their mouths without having to take bites. Other species may be different.

 

 

 

Edited December 28, 2021 by PineSong