Not eating

[scuba123cliff]

Hi
On thursday i got hold of two wild heckels till now i havnt seen them eat i have tried h/heart,frozen bloodworm,live mozzie wrigglers,freeze dried t/worms and flake.They are in a tank with 2 other discus two are pigs.
Any thoughts
Cliff

[the german]

hi cliff

heckel are not easy to keep,and when they are wild its sometimes very hard.they stay in stations in south aeica for several weeks without food and then the transport and the quarantine.
they also prefer a low ph,so maybe you try to get it down say arround 5.5

michael

[scuba123cliff]

Ok should i bring the ph down slowly or just drop it straight down its at 6.8

[the german]

no,very slow,when you have 6.8 try 6.0 first maybe it is enough.
what you use for bring it down?

[scuba123cliff]

I can do a water change and put in ro water untill its at 6

[the german]

but in ro water is nothing so you have to ad trace elements or similar.
i get my ph down with phosphoric acid ,very cheap and save(when you do it slowly)

[scuba123cliff]

i thought that by adding ro water to tap water the trace elements were still there

[the german]

they do,i have not much experience with ro water,in germany i never need it,i just guess when you ad more maybe you get to much ro water and get short of TE.

[Merrilyn]

I assume these are wild caught heckels.

Some of them can be very difficult to feed. They often won't eat anything but live food.

Try to get them interested in live blackworm, live brine shrimp or small live garden worms.

Mosquito wrigglers are also good if you can find some.

Once you get them eating, you can gradually try to change them over to prepared food.

[scott bowler]

cliff do you have any pic ? i would love to see them .. scott