Inka 50 won't eat BBS???

[uberape]

I have 4 juvenile inka 50, one is thriving (male) and the other three (one female, the other two??) just wont eat BBS. I dont know what to do, i have tried cyclopeeze, and a very high protein dried food and they spit almost everything. The little ones look to be trying to find copepods in my floating plant mass but they must have already depleted the population as they are looking thin. I dont know what to do they wont eat out the water column and ignore the bbs when they do try them they spit. they are about a cm long the smallest one the obvious female seems to be ok but i just dont know, she wont eat out the water column either. The water parameters are fine ph about 6.5. The male and female are in a community tank and are influenced by the eating habits of other fish. The other two are struggling in a 15 gallon shared with a juvenile caca who is also thriving. Im stumped, the breeder states that she fed decapsulated brine, but i dont want to feed that.what should i do??

 

[uberape]

they all died a long and painful starvation thanks to the 78 people that read my cry for help but kept there mouths shut. just joking ive moved them to another tank with a fresh crop of copepods for now and will painstakingly feed live daphnia from the petstore.

 

[Mike Wise]

I think most people, me included, didn't answer because they had no answer to your question. I've never had a healthy apisto that didn't eat live & newly hatched baby brine shrimp. Were you using newly hatched BBS or old/frozen BBS?

 

[Microman]

Having bred over 120 species/forms of Apisto I too, like Mike, have never come across Apistos that wont touch BBS.
You mention the spitting out of all foods... This is natural feeding behaviour for Apistos, especially young specimens feeding in the water column. They will take a BBS and and then spit it out many times before finally feeding upon it. This behaviour does indeed look like the fish are not feeding and ignoring the foods.
If this is not what your fish are doing then I have no idea, Its a new one on me...
Mark...

 

[uberape]

I thought that because I simply could not find an answer anywhere. ?? They were freshly hatched, grade A bbs. I cant understand them, they just ignore the bbs. They get excited when I put them in the tank and the juvenile cacatuiodes starts his frenzy but then they just ignore them and look for something else. Im stumped. I recieved four inkas and a rogue caca. The male inka and the caca have grown to 1.5 inches and 1 female inka is around 1 inch, but the other two are still the same size at about 9mm. I removed the two larger in case of bullying, and now in a tank with more copepods they are doing ok again but its only a matter of time. yes i know the spitting thing but they dont retake. I just thought they are f1 so are fussy, i never had f1 before.