training fish onto pellets using seafood juices?

[homegrowncichlid]

I'm currently trying to get my lamark angels onto NLS pellets,
A little bit of history, in the past, I had a pair of Japanese swallowtail angels, quarantined them together, trained them together and introduced them together and they ate frozen food with no problems. However while I was tying to train them to pellets, only one took to it, the other almost took to it, but it ate air and started floating. After that it never ate another pellet again. I moved them to the main display and even there for the next 6 months, it just wouldn't move to pellets. I assumed the air bubble and the buoyancy problem turned her off. Over time as I fed the system a mix of frozen and dry, she wasted away, when I went returned from vacation, using only the automatic feeder.
Currently with the lamarks, I'm going to make sure they eat pellets before moving them from quarantine to the system and again, 1 started nibbling on the pellets and 2 days later, eats them ravenously, however the other nibbled on it, but spat it out and now completely ignores the pellets.
SO, I soaking the pellets in frozen juice before dropping them in, and they both go crazy looking for the frozen food, but she still doesn't go for it. I think it's just a matter of time before she does. My question is, what other juices from the supermarket can I soak the pellets in before feeding the pellets?
I've crushed garlic, (though I don't think I need this, since NLS includes garlic now)
I've got a can of oysters, (thinking of using the juice/water, not the oysters themselves, though I may try to stuff the pellets into the oyster meat)
I've got selecon.

Thanks in advance.

 

[blaxsun]

I just setup my automatic feeders and my Lamarck's angel found her own way to the pellets. I use a combination of NFS AlgaeMax, Marine Fish and Nyos Sweet Aloe/True Algae. The algae-eaters in my tank really like the algae pellets.

 

[Lbrdsoxfan]

I also use NLS pellets for my fish, but I noticed with my former bicolor, it loved ocean nutrition #1 & #2 pellets when it was first introduced so I keep them around for new fish.

 

[Breadbox]

I once trained my Chromis to eat Duncans with reef roids, I say go for it, the chances are pretty good!

 

[homegrowncichlid]

I also use NLS pellets for my fish, but I noticed with my former bicolor, it loved ocean nutrition #1 & #2 pellets when it was first introduced so I keep them around for new fish.

hmm, I see ocean nutrition is a moist pellet, as opposed to mine dry pellets. How do you store it or maintain freshness? I'm assuming once the pack is opened, it should be frozen if I'm going to use it just to train fish going forward.
Though using seafood juice, I would be creating my own "moist" food.

 

[Lbrdsoxfan]

I've always stored them unrefrigerated. Iirc, it just says store in a cool dry place.

 

[fish farmer]

hmm, I see ocean nutrition is a moist pellet, as opposed to mine dry pellets. How do you store it or maintain freshness? I'm assuming once the pack is opened, it should be frozen if I'm going to use it just to train fish going forward.
Though using seafood juice, I would be creating my own "moist" food.

I used to train sea run Atlantic Salmon to eat a moist pelleted diet. These fish had never eaten in captivity since their release as fry or smolts.

We made our own moist diet which we would make weekly and store refrigerated. One of the tricks was to wrap the pellet with pieces of beef liver....salmonids seemed to LOVE liver. They would actually grab the whole combo, spit out the pellet part and eat the liver part. Sometimes we would just soak the pellet in the liver juice, we also tried some fishing lure scent concoctions.

I would think anything that smells like their wild diet is bound to get them interested.

 

[homegrowncichlid]

I used to train sea run Atlantic Salmon to eat a moist pelleted diet. These fish had never eaten in captivity since their release as fry or smolts.

We made our own moist diet which we would make weekly and store refrigerated. One of the tricks was to wrap the pellet with pieces of beef liver....salmonids seemed to LOVE liver. They would actually grab the whole combo, spit out the pellet part and eat the liver part. Sometimes we would just soak the pellet in the liver juice, we also tried some fishing lure scent concoctions.

I would think anything that smells like their wild diet is bound to get them interested.

Liver? I wouldn't have thought of that, not may favorite food either, I guess I can squeeze the liquid out of the liver for the fish this week, then stew it up for myself.

 

[homegrowncichlid]

Thanks for all your feedback, I have soaked my pellets with juices from my frozen food cubes, which I squeezed out. However the angel still can see its the same old pellet and was swimming around looking for the frozen. So I froze the juiced up pellets and fed that cube to it and tricked it into biting into it. It would swallow before it broke open, at which point it could see pellets scattered around and again ignored that. heh. Well, after a few days of that, its now feeding on the dry pellets.