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I recently purchased my yarrelli. The fish showed up on Tuesday as agreed, but hasn't eaten. I'm worried because the fish had to be starved in order to be shipped, and it hasn't eaten anything since I've gotten it. It seems healthy enough, but it just won't eat. I've offered it pellets, blood worms, live feeder fish, live ghost shrimp, freshly killed feeders and freshly killed shrimp. I've tried feeding it with all combinations of lights on and off in the day and night.

Do any of you who have experience with yarrelli's have any tricks you can recommend to get him to eat? This fish was painfully expensive and I don't want it to starve it's self!

The little guy just sits in a corner of the tank with the current blowing on his face. He's currently by himself in a 10 gallon grow out tank so my 6" RTC doesn't eat him. He's 4" right now, but not nearly as massive as the RTC. Sorry, no pics. Don't have a camera at the moment.

The best thing you can do is wait. The fish will eat when it settles in and gets hungry. I recently collected some Synodontis and never saw them eat when I tried to feed them. Now, after 3 weeks, they are eating even flake food. Just give it a week and try to feed again. They key thing is not to accidentally pollute the tank by offering too much food that goes uneaten.
-Shane

Hi there & congratulations on obtaining yourself one of these splendid fish.

I myself have two of these at about 4" & 3" respectiveley.
Mine took several weeks before they started feeding and even then it was only on live & sometimes defrosted bloodworm.
These fish must have a strong current and also be given somewhere to hide.
Mine very rarley venture very far from their respective hiding places even too feed & generally wait for the food items to drift past them on the current.
Mine now take live & frozen rivershrimp, prawns & bloodworm but they favourite is live earthworms which they got nuts for.
Just give him some time, your be amazed how long they can go without eating.
As previoulsy mentioned be very careful not to pollute the aquarium and quickly remove any uneaten items. They are very intolerant of poor water quality.
As an aside they also prefer slighty lower water temps around 70 degrees but will tolerate higher.
let us know how you get on.

but they favourite is live earthworms which they got nuts for.

There aren't many fish that refuse live earthworms (nightcrawlers). These will be my absolute first choice of food.

You can get them from bait stores.

Thanks for the replies guys. He did start eating frozen bloodworms, and he also ate some ghost shrimp that had been in the tank forever and a pair of feeder guppies that had some babies. Ironically enough, he ate two litters worth of the babies before the parents.

He seems to be doing pretty good now.