Ghost not eating

[dadzilla50]

My BGK, who made it thru a tough time over the past six weeks (we think a bacterial infection, perhaps flex), is off his feed again. We've just moved him (5 days ago) to a larger tank (75 gallon) and he's eaten very little over the past week. However, he looks normal, swims around the tank pretty normally, but sleeps a lot during the day.

He's always eaten bloodworms out of my hand before or plankton at the surface. Neither seem to appeal to him right now. He's currently sharing a tank with two small schools of Buenos Aires tetras and zebra danios. I'm wondering if they may be too active and bother him.

Also, those of you who don't feed by hand, how do you feed your bloodworms?

thanks,

dadzilla

[jenly]

I'd guess your knife is still a little stressed about the move. Was it in a more quiet, peaceful tank than now?

Mine rarely takes food from my hand, and never feeds from the top of the tank. So he gets plenty of sinking food; frozen bloodworms that haven't seperated yet from the ball they were frozen in sink quickly enough for him to get to; but of course everyone likes bloodworms, so that's the last think I drop in the tank, so the other fish are too full to try and poach them!

[Carraig]

Hey there,

You might want to try using a pipette. If you place the food in an egg cup and top it off with aquarium water. Then use the pipette/syringe to suck up some of the food. This way you can place a small amount right into your knifes hiding place.

My knives all hide under slate caves for most of the day. Normally the most I'll see of them when the full lights are on is a couple of hooped tails sticking out the ends. If you don't already have one I'd try and arrange some sort of cover for your knife.

A thin piece of slate or pipe at an angle against the front of your tank will mean you can see your knife even when he's hiding. A nice shaded cave might help lower his stress levels.

[dadzilla50]

Thanks for your responses and suggestions. Our Ghost died yesterday. I still don't know for sure what was wrong with him. No external indicators I could see. I had just moved him to a quarantine tank to retreat him with Maracyn/Maracyn II and I think he was just too weak to make the move.

Although it's amazing how attached you can get to a fish in just a few months and right now it hurts knowing I did something?? resulting in his death.....we will get another Ghost in the near future. They are terrific, beautiful fish. We have a much better tank situation for a BGK now and we're much better at maintaining water quality. It's just very sad to me that our fish often pay with their lives for our ignorance as we learn how to best care for them.

dadzilla

[mish]

Hi dadzilla

Sorry to hear about your loss, amazing how they really do become ones children.