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i have 2 Eirmotus octozona which i have read is hardly imported and can't really find any info, but they been living with more for about a month so i must be doing something right.

anyway i been noticing that they are extremely shy and they wont eat anything but worms and even with that they tend to be hard to feed them that.

they are really skinny so i dont think starving them until they eat spinach or flakes will work.

the only other thing to do is make a speices tank for them, as the fishes i have in there now are fast, small, and probably to food aggressive for these barbs.

other than a speices tank, i am out of ideas. what would be the best course of action, b/c when i saw them try to eat worms, they ate it, but spit it up and the otehr fishes ate it out of their mouths b4 they could get it again.

A week or so back, I was having a similar problem (with slow fussy eating apistos). The other fish were too fast to get to the food & they extremely shy apistos had no chance to get to the food.

I removed the other fish and then spoke to LFS who sold the fish to me & found out what he had been feeding them. When the fish were on their own & I was feeding what they liked (which ended up being Hikari frozen bloodworms, daphnia & brine shrimp) they gradually learned I meant food. When I knew I had them feeding & that they associated me with food, I added some other fish back to the tank. It took about 2 weeks to get them feeding & caused a lot of worry, but everything is ok.

So, I'd suggest removing the other fish (even if only temporarily) as well as checking with LFS to see what he fed them. Hope this helps a little.

Cheers
TW

Before I read TWs reply the first thing that came to mind was contact the LFS and the importer to see what they fed them on. \
If you do a bit of research about their natural habitat this will give you a good idea about their feeding habits.

Have a look in [link=My Profile] http://www.fishprofiles.com/forums/member.aspx?id=1935[/link] for my tank info

Look here for my
Betta 11Gal Desktop & Placidity 5ft Community Tank Photos

Keith

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