My fish stopped eating supermarket shrimp.

[Mike7744]

I have a bit of a problem all of my fish used to eat supermarket. Bought shrimp for quite a whthen my snowflake eel stopped eating and was refusing food. I decided to try frozen Krill. And he came back to life and is hooked on the stuff. Now I cannot get him to eat any other food. I have heard that it is bad for fish to eat Krill Long term, But how do I get him to eat Something else? He won't touch shrimp anymore.

 

[Uncle99]

I have a bit of a problem all of my fish used to eat supermarket. Bought shrimp for quite a whthen my snowflake eel stopped eating and was refusing food. I decided to try frozen Krill. And he came back to life and is hooked on the stuff. Now I cannot get him to eat any other food. I have heard that it is bad for fish to eat Krill Long term, But how do I get him to eat Something else? He won't touch shrimp anymore.

I’ve been feeding krill daily for 7 years, along with Mysis and brine and worms.

My guys love it. Never heard krill being bad.

 

[Mike7744]

I’ve been feeding krill daily for 7 years, along with Mysis and brine and worms.

My guys love it. Never heard krill being bad.

Ok thanks that's good to know

 

[C_AWOL]

Are you thawing and refreezing the shrimp constantly/noticing freezer burn?

All my puffers will refuse old/stale food of any sort and they're all extremely gluttonous feeders.

A diet of just market shrimp or krill generally wont be good but additives/incorporating other marine proteins (clams/squid/etc) is wise.

 

[Mike7744]

Are you thawing and refreezing the shrimp constantly/noticing freezer burn?

All my puffers will refuse old/stale food of any sort and they're all extremely gluttonous feeders.

A diet of just market shrimp or krill generally wont be good but additives/incorporating other marine proteins (clams/squid/etc) is wise.

No it is fresh

 

[ISpeakForTheSeas]

I’ve been feeding krill daily for 7 years, along with Mysis and brine and worms.

My guys love it. Never heard krill being bad.

Now I cannot get him to eat any other food. I have heard that it is bad for fish to eat Krill Long term, But how do I get him to eat Something else? He won't touch shrimp anymore.

Sorry, it's long.

Krill isn't generally bad for normal fish, but it causes issues for predators:

You want to be careful feeding krill, silversides, and even shrimp - the reason is the Thiaminase, which breaks down Vitamin B1; by all accounts that I've heard, if predators develop a vitamin B1 deficiency, they will die from it.

Fresh/live shrimp is fine, but shrimp that has been frozen/stored for a long time will have some of the vitamin B1 it contains breakdown while the thiaminase stays in tact - this can lead to it adding to the thiaminase in a predator's diet with little vitamin B1 to counteract it.

Some kinds of silversides are fine, but a lot of silversides are high in thiaminase (there are a ton of different species known as silversides) - the last I've heard, San Francisco Bay Brand (January of this year) was the one with good silversides to use.

Krill is high in thiaminase, and should largely be avoided with predators.

Krill is not good, and extremely bad as the only food. Krill is high in thiaminese and low in fat. Thiaminese binds vitamin B1 and can prove deadly within several months. Eels need a good amount of fat, and fats high in omega 3. If you do not include more beneficial additions to their diet, it will prove deadly. A lacking diet could also force the eel to eat something that they would not have otherwise eaten. Here's a thread I wrote about good foods to include a diet for predatory fish, I've also written threads specifically about eels and one that talks about the importance of fats. You can click my name and "find all threads",

If it were me; I would boost mg to 1600ppm, offer live gut loaded ghost shrimp, slivers of wild skin on salmon, and mussels. The live food will be complete nutrition, salmon contains the best fats, and mussels contain a good amount of B1. The mg will help with digestion and help pass any potential blockage.

Lion King's dead food recommendations

I'm a health nut if you haven't noticed, this also translates to my pets. Today I will cover some of the dead foods I feed and why, with some nutritional info that I recall off the top of my head. This is by no means all the foods you can feed, these are just the ones I include in my feedings...

www.reef2reef.com

Shrimp is high in thiaminase, so feeding as a sole diet, long term, will result in vitamin B1 deficiency.

Here is a clue; scallops are high in thiaminase. True silversides are not, but most of the aquarium “silversides” being sold are really a type of smelt, and those are high as well. I think only the Sanfrancisco bay brand is true silversides. Shrimp are also slightly high. What this could mean is that over time, your eel became deficient in thiamin. I always supplement predatory fish diets with thiamin and vitamin E.

The length of time you’ve had the fish and the gradual onset of symptoms support this idea as well.

For trying to get it feeding on other things again:

you can try squid - I've heard some eels tend to really go for squid. Live food (such as live ghost shrimp or fiddler crabs) is also a good, last resort option to try and get it feeding again.

Have you tried mixing small amounts (that get increasingly larger over time) of the other foods in with the krill when you offer the krill to see if it will start recognizing the other things as food?

I guess I'm thinking get the krill out, set a piece of shrimp or mussel meat or something so that it's literally touching the krill, add the garlic, then offer the first piece of krill.

After offering it a piece of krill, try offering it the other meat; if it takes it, great, if not, then put the meat back and offer the next piece of krill, trying again with the other meat after - I wouldn't expect it to take the other meat on the first go, but by offering it with the krill, you should be able to train the eel to view it as food, so it may eventually take it in the future.

For food recommendations - salmon, clams/mussels, squid, crabs if you can get them without breaking the bank, fresh shrimp, etc. are all good options; avoid things that are high in thiaminase:

Here's 3 of my most comprehensive threads on feeding lionfish and other predators.

Lion King's dead food recommendations

I'm a health nut if you haven't noticed, this also translates to my pets. Today I will cover some of the dead foods I feed and why, with some nutritional info that I recall off the top of my head. This is by no means all the foods you can feed, these are just the ones I include in my feedings...

www.reef2reef.com

The truth about FATS

I remember one the first things I learned about fish when I started this hobby; was the differences in carnivores, omnivores, and herbivores. Lions, eels, anglers, etc. are carnivores, among many other species. Carnivores need a dominant protein and fat diet with minimal carbs. Frankly I'm a bit...

www.reef2reef.com

Live Food

Ghosties, guppies, and mollies, oh my. These are the best, most available, safest, and nutritional choices to feed your predator. If you have a fish you have decided the inclusion of a live in beneficial or even necessary, these are the best options to feed. I can not recommend no other species...

www.reef2reef.com

Eel Prepper

Eels and lions have alot in common; I have seen many posts lately concerning eels, so I thought I would pass on some information that I have learned over the years. !st off, know your source, do not get an eel from a source that runs copper in their system. Eels have sensitivity to copper...

www.reef2reef.com

If you have questions on the thiaminase content of a species of fish you may want to feed to your lions, see the link below:

Alternative foods for predatory fish

Hello I have some predatory fish (miniatus grouper, clown grouper, tesalata eel, small red tooth trigger) I am currently feed them whole fish sold at my local fish shop but its becoming quite pricey what other alternatives could I fees them from a supermarket?

www.reef2reef.com

That said, salmon is pretty much the gold standard; mackerel is a decent second place to my understanding.

With regards to the long-term diet, I'd suggest adding a good, fatty fish like salmon (the gold-standard) or mackerel (a good, second place), squid is a good one to add, crabs too if you can do so without breaking the bank, and then I'd also add in some algae (preferably multiple types) to get a few more vitamins and minerals in there that might not be supplied by the meat.

With all the foods, the fresher the better, and the more intact the shrimp is (head, tail, shell, etc.) the better. Ulva, Halymenia, and Nori would be my first suggestions for algae to add, but others like Porphyra and Spirulina would be good too. I doubt the eel would eat the algae by itself, so supplementing it either with algae pellets (such as NLS Marine Fish Pellets), an algal gelatin feed, or through something like wrapping the meat in the algae would be my suggestion.

Predators typically get their "vegetables" (like algae) from their prey - when they eat the herbivores, they eat the vegetables in the prey's organs too.

So, they may or may not purposefully eat the vegetables, but they often still play an important in predator health/nutrition.

Also, predators like eels should typically be kept on a fast/gorge diet, so they shouldn't be fed every day - how often they should be fed depends on the age/size of the eel.

 

[Jay Hemdal]

I have a bit of a problem all of my fish used to eat supermarket. Bought shrimp for quite a whthen my snowflake eel stopped eating and was refusing food. I decided to try frozen Krill. And he came back to life and is hooked on the stuff. Now I cannot get him to eat any other food. I have heard that it is bad for fish to eat Krill Long term, But how do I get him to eat Something else? He won't touch shrimp anymore.

Krill has thiaminase in it that breaks down vitamin B1.

I use a vitamin E / vitamin B1 supplement for all seafoods, but it is only available to public aquariums. You can likely find a vitamin supplement for aquariums that would work.

You could try letting the eel get hungry, and then try some salmon strips on it.