Cardinals Not Eating

**Boesman** · 9th Jun 2008, 18:06

Bought 50 fat, healthy & good looking cardinals from Gan's on Tuesday. Try feeding them with tetra flake food on Wednesday onwards but they just refuse to eat. Seems like they are hungry as they will dashed to the flakes but then refuse to eat them. The funny things is that without eating for the past 6 days, they still look healthy and do not lose their colour. My past experience with cardinals from LFS was that they will rush and eat any fish food given. Had a feeling that they had gotten use to the fish food that Gan had fed them. Any brother out there has this experience from Gan's jumbo cardinals and can advise what food they will take or any way to make them eat or else they will die of hunger sooner or later. Any advise will be deeply appreciated at this time.

**spgan** · 9th Jun 2008, 21:55

Hi Boesman, you may like to refer to this post by Heiko Bleher.

http://www.aquaticquotient.com/forum...ad.php?t=37702

Hi,

I am not sure waht is happening to your cardinals. Surely you should feed them with flakes (not blood worms) and also, if they still do not eat, do the following:
take a hard boiled egg and peel it. Take only the hard yellow inside (the eggyolk) and let it sit dry for an hour or so. Than screen it through a fine tea net (wire screen tea-filter, or whatever you call it), so the yellow eggyolk comes out in very tiny round balls. And those you take between two fingers and feed the cardinals slowly with it. But do NOT place in much, just what you can hold between two fingers and look if they eat it.

Normally that is the best food for cardinals and used by the best exporters in Manaus. I have teached them this, as it comes close to what most cardinals eat in nature: the yellow meat of the palmfruit Burity... (see also in my book). And normally if they do not eat well, or at all, they will always take on the eggyolk.

You surely will have success with it.

Best regards

Heiko Bleher

\
__________________
Best regards,
Heiko Bleher

**Boesman** · 9th Jun 2008, 23:28

Hi Spgan.
Thanks very much for highlighting the thread by Heiko. Will try the egg yolk if the cardinals still do not eat the flake food for another day. But really hope that they will go for the flakes just like any other community fishes.
Thanks pal.

**Toshika** · 12th Jun 2008, 21:06

they are like that initially for about 1 week before they start to be hungry and then you will see them go in a food frenzy..its common for it to be like that in the beginning. after 1 week you can see their 'true colours'...

**properfool** · 13th Jun 2008, 09:08

Hmm. what's wrong with blood worms ?
My cardinals go into a frenzy for freeze dried blood worms....

**Boesman** · 13th Jun 2008, 10:32

Hello to all kind bros
It is exactly what bro Toshika have anticipated. After a week of patience, most of them begin to eat although some still spit out. I think this is just a transitional problem, after which they will get use to their new home & start to eat whatever that is given. More importantly is stick to your maintenace regime & let them relax & not be stressed & stay healthy. THANKS to all the kind soul at AQ. Cheers.

**PROFILLET** · 13th Jun 2008, 14:01

All animals will eat when starve. After days they sure eat.If not, it means the water condition is no good or too warm. Check your filter and WC.

**Quixotic** · 13th Jun 2008, 17:27

Originally Posted by PROFILLET

All animals will eat when starve.

Not true. Some fishes would starve and waste away if you try feeding them with the "incorrect" food. And even if they do eat after starving but if the wrong food is provided (e.g. meaty food for herbivores), they can get ill. Therefore, you cannot generalise like that.

However, back to topic, generally, cardinal tetras shouldn't be the most difficult to feed, unless something is really wrong with your setup.

**celticfish** · 13th Jun 2008, 18:07

Wow, this egg yolk thingy is a blast from the past for me.
I remember when I was young my dad told me about this method.
Not for the adult Cardinals but for fry.
He did say you can "dry" the egg yolk to keep for a bit.
But I reckon that will harden it quite a bit too.

This food type would be worth a revisit by me some time when the opportunity comes.

@ Boesman,
Might want to check on the "freshness" of you flake food.
Fish have a developed sense of taste.
So I would not be surprise if its due to "old" food.
Out high humdity climate also doesn't help the shelf life of fish food too.
especially after the package is opened.

**smeagol** · 19th Jun 2008, 14:33

Hi everyone, sorry for hijacking threadstarter's thread but I was about to start something on the same problem.

My cardinals (30 of them in a 1ft tank) are not eating after a couple of days. Water paramaters look all right, they swim fine and don't look sick, but they just don't eat. Worst, two of the cardinals have apparently been attacked by other fishes as I can see the tail has been biten. (I only have cardinals and no other fishes in the tank)

The food I tried feeding are pellets that don't sink. Should I change food? Advice is much appreciated!

**Boesman** · 20th Jun 2008, 11:12

Hi All.
I have tried Hikari blood worms, egg yolk, Bao Hong, sinking pellets & flakes in the past 3 weeks and up to now, it seems like they are still eating very little or not at all. As for the "unfreshness" of the fish food, I think it is not a concern for my case, as they are just bought & all my other tetras in the other tanks rushed for them like mad. It is just very queer & puzzling why the cardinals are still not eating normally. What I am doing now is just to feed a minimal amount of the type of food that I observed is best to their liking. Out of the 50, 3 had died so far. The rest though have shrinked slightly in size, are still looking ok. Will continue to monitor them carefully & patiently. Hopefully, this is just a matter of time concern.

**TTS** · 20th Jun 2008, 12:01

Originally Posted by Boesman

Hi All.
I have tried Hikari blood worms, egg yolk, Bao Hong, sinking pellets & flakes in the past 3 weeks and up to now, it seems like they are still eating very little or not at all. As for the "unfreshness" of the fish food, I think it is not a concern for my case, as they are just bought & all my other tetras in the other tanks rushed for them like mad. It is just very queer & puzzling why the cardinals are still not eating normally. What I am doing now is just to feed a minimal amount of the type of food that I observed is best to their liking. Out of the 50, 3 had died so far. The rest though have shrinked slightly in size, are still looking ok. Will continue to monitor them carefully & patiently. Hopefully, this is just a matter of time concern.

Just curious... what's the temperature in your tank?
My cardinals eat like crazy since day 1... my water temperature is between 25 - 27 deg.

**properfool** · 20th Jun 2008, 23:21

hey my last batch of cardinals did that when I kept them in the wrong water. I was putting aquarium "stress relieving salt" in the water....which was entirely the wrong direction to take since they like soft acidic water with no salinity.
Had a few deaths every few days or weeks.

After I changed tactics and did many small water changes (20-30% each day) with adequately aged dechlorinated tap water and after that they rebounded and grew enormous.

Er...your tank is adequately cycled right ?

**Boesman** · 21st Jun 2008, 09:51

My tank is about 2 year old & temperature is ard 28 degree ( small fan running). For the past 3 weeks since introducing the cardinals, I have been doing 10-20% WC everyday alternate day. The only thing I left out is using a dechlorinator which I have never practise in the past and all my other tetras have no problem. Will be getting a bottle of de-chlorinator to try out tmr. Any more helpful comments will certainly be most welcome. Cheers.

**JayZee** · 3rd Jul 2008, 22:26

Sorry to detract the thread a bit, do cardinal tetras swims upward to feed or they just eat food that sinks down? It's because my tetras is facing this problem. They wait for the food to sink down instead of swimming up and eat. Is that normal?

**warrenlee** · 24th Aug 2009, 18:05

wow.. it seems like so many people facing this problem.

Me too. I bought 30 lots of XL cardinal, they just refuse to eat
and slowly, one by one die...

I am still clueless.

Any expert to seek advice from ?

**warrenlee** · 2nd Dec 2009, 13:03

Hi Boesman,

I have the same problem with you. Big XL cardinal refuse to eat, after 1 week.

Can you share with us, is your cardinal problem resolved ?
What is your status of your cardinal ? how do you manage to feed them ?

**Boesman** · 2nd Dec 2009, 15:36

Hello Warren. I have just sent you a PM.

Cheers & Regards.

**Boesman** · 2nd Dec 2009, 19:05

Originally Posted by warrenlee

Hi Boesman,

I have the same problem with you. Big XL cardinal refuse to eat, after 1 week.

Can you share with us, is your cardinal problem resolved ?
What is your status of your cardinal ? how do you manage to feed them ?

All the XXL cardinals RIP one by one, day by day. Really helpless at that time. After that got my present batch of about 70 pcs from bros here. They fight for food with my rummy tretras and rainbow since one day. Up to now, the I still do not understand why they they refuse to eat and finally end in death. God bless.

**Fuzzy** · 2nd Dec 2009, 20:02

I've not kept XL cardinals before, but I had this problem with my first 2 batches of adult and juvenile Galaxy.

The juveniles grew up to adult size with no problems at all, but once they were all adults they started dying one by one.

My ammonia and nitrate levels were undetectable and pH was neutral at 7.0

Aside from the possibility of the JBL base ferts leaching through the gravel substrate, I'm suspecting in my case it was high and/or fluctuating temperatures as well as well as possible bullying by the 3 Harlequin Rasboras I had in the tank.

There were 20 Galaxys, 40 cherry reds, 5 Corys, 3 ottos, 3 harlequin rasboras, 3 wood shrimp and 20 tiger shrimp in a 3 foot nisso tank, but the temps were fluctuating between 28C - 31C across the week.

Tanks was lightly planted, with mostly mosses and the tank was fan cooled it at the time. I never managed to get glosso and hairgrass to survive in the tank.

What were your tank temperatures and water parameters like? and what other livestock was present in the tank?