False Perc Not Eating

More specifically, (s)he is not swallowing the food. I've got frozen Ocean Nutrition Prime Reef and my perc takes a bite, spits it out then ignores it all together. I've been feeding every two days and it doesn't seem to make a difference. I'm about to buy some flake food tomorrow and see how that goes. Help.

 

You could always try a little garlic soak to entice it's appetite more.

 

Forgot to mention that. I just read someone's post about that and did it. Maybe I'm not putting enough garlic? Do I put the garlic juice directly on the frozen food or food in cup, tank water, then garlic? I did the second way that could have messed it up.

 

Put the food in a cup, drained (if it was frozen), and then put enough garlic juice on it to coat it, don't like drown the food in it or anything. Then just feed it to your fish.

 

Excellent, thank you!

 

No problem, hope it works for you and be sure to keep us posted if it does.

 

Well maybe (s)he's just a little snob. I'll try some flake from my Marine Sci class and see if that works better. The garlic seems like it was too strong because now the fish actually avoided it all together.

 

Huh, what kind of garlic juice are you using? Has the fish had problems like this eating before or is it a new fish?

 

Relatively new fish/setup. This is my first setup and first fish. I noticed it actually ate only when I dumped the food into the tank. I don't want to do this again because it looks like most of it didn't get eaten. Well I know fish will eat themselves to death, but will they starve themselves to death?

 

Not 100% positive but like 99% positive, but I don't think a saltwater fish will eat itself to death like freshwater ones will. They are 10x smarter. Whenever mine get full they just ignore the food all together. And yes, I do believe they can starve themselves but that takes awhile, depends on the fish.