# dovii not eating??



## airjordan23 (Jun 22, 2013)

hi I have a dovvi that is 12 inches. I have had him nearly two weeks and he was eating sort of weird,, by this I mean he eats one fish every few days. now his tummy has sunk in and hardly ever eats,, I had three goldfish swimming around in there and he just looked at them,, I woke up in the morning and he had eaten one and just killed the oher two,, this was two three days ago and hasn't eaten since,, I put a goldfish in there just before and all he did was chase it put it in his mouth and spat it out and sucked it in three times then spat it out fully,, and then just killed it without eating it,, I put another in just then and he just doesn't eat it.

I don't know if he is sick I checked the water and its fine. all his colours are bright like green blue and a little bit of purple,,, he is active but goes and chills in one spot for awhile.
I don't get what is wrong with him his had one feed in a week,, will having a parasite make him drop colour because he hasn't ,, PLEASE HELP :-?


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## BC in SK (Aug 11, 2012)

1st of all, I would try and get him on pellets. Not difficult, just takes some time. Keep in mind fish have no problem going 2 weeks with out food. Don't feed him for 4-5 days. Try some pellets. If he won't even try them or spits it all out, net the excess pellets and repeat the process in another 4-5 days. If still, he will not eat it, go a few more days again and try some frozen food. Chopped up silver sides, salmon, or shrimp meant for human consumption. If you can get him onto frozen, eventually you should be able to get him onto pellets as well.

Feeder goldfish might be O.K. for the occasional feeding but even then it carries some risk of disease.

IME, a dovii will often just kill a feeder rather then eat it. The very first time I tried feeders (3 young black belts), my male dovii ate one, killed the other and bit the tail off the third  
For what ever reason, took me a long time to learn :roll: that one feeder at a time and supervised. When I had got him, he was a good size (~6") and would eat only pellets, no frozen until he was over 12"-----quite unlike any other growing cichlid I have ever had, that generally prefers frozen! But he was never forced to eat any frozen as I never went a week with out feeding pellets.


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## airjordan23 (Jun 22, 2013)

thanks for the reply
he literally eats hardly so I think he may have caught a parasite I got some antibiotics for the tank just incase. the bloke at the fish shop said there big sooks some times so I hope he just needs to harden up cause I really like him. 
I will be trying to get him on pellets as I don't want him to die. I have tried before but the pellet needs to be moving so he thinks its a moving prey *** noticed. but now its back to eaing the pellet spitting it out and looking at me like what the **** was that


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