How To Feed A Black Moor?

[Guest squwish]

I have a 20 gal tank which as a black moor and a red cap oranda. Both are same size. When I feed them, the Oranda will come up and take the food, pretty quickly but the black moor stays at the bottom and waits for it to settle on the bottom, which never happens because of the oranda, and tries to find the food. I tried hand feeding the moor, but the moor can even see the food half the time because of his eyes! He's not blind, on the side note. How do I insure that the moor is getting enough food or even how do I feed him?

[Guest squwish]

I have a 20 gal tank which as a black moor and a red cap oranda. Both are same size. When I feed them, the Oranda will come up and take the food, pretty quickly but the black moor stays at the bottom and waits for it to settle on the bottom, which never happens because of the oranda, and tries to find the food. I tried hand feeding the moor, but the moor can even see the food half the time because of his eyes! He's not blind, on the side note. How do I insure that the moor is getting enough food or even how do I feed him?

[alexiscool]

sinking pellets...

droping the food in his mouth when he comes up to feed..

place the food in different places in the tank..

When i feed my demekin i hand feed him..or place the food right in his mouth..

or algea wafers give them 3 of them and the oranda and moor would both be eating the wafers..

[nickie73]

You may have to get a divider to use during feeding times. I have a demekin and a fantail and the fantail is very quick to eat the food. I use a divider to ensure that the demekin get his share of food.

[Kasper]

I have a black moor too, I bought a cheap little breeders net and would get him to swim in it durning feeding time. I tapped on the glass lightly three times and started Hand feeding him (the tapping was to signal it was dinner time! Eventually he got that when I tapped three times it was time to eat and he would swim to the top!

Hope that helped. You can get breeders nets at Wally world or your LFS for anywhere from $2 - $6 (Don't get the expensive ones they are the same thing

[justkeepswimming]

before my moor got used to hand feeding, he would only search for food on the bottom of the tank as you described. i used to take the [floating] pellet and use my finger to squeeze the air out of it against the side of the tank.after that the pellet should sink to the bottom. try giving your moor pellets on the side of the tank he swims the most, and try dropping the pellet when the oranda isn't paying attention so he wont immediately dart towards the food.

if all else fails, perhaps separate them during feeding time?

[Petperson04]

I don't know if this would be plausible for you, but I would scoop up the food-hog in an empty cool-whip dish or some other small container and feed them separately.

At first, my food-hog fish was reluctant to get in, but I guess now that he sees that he gets food without competition, he swims in readily!

[Guest squwish]

It worked, thanks for all your help, guys.!