Scarlet Badis Not Eating!

I have a pair of scarlet badis that I got a few days ago. They are healthy, living in a 7 gallon but they have not eaten much. The tank is cycled and the water parameters are fine.

So far I have tried feeding them:
- frozen bloodworms
- frozen brine shrimp
- frozen daphnia
- frozen baby brine shrimp

They spit all of it out. The only thing they eat are the freshwater pods in my tank, but there isn't a large enough population of them to support the badis long term.

What else should I try feeding them? I'm assuming they'll only eat live food since they eat live pods. Should I try giving them live BBS?

 

Scarlet Badis are very picky fish. I guess since they're eating the pods you should consider feeding them live BBS. They usually except frozen foods but I guess not in this case. I guess you just got really picky ones.

Good Luck.

 

Mine don't eat anything but live food. I mainly feed micro worms but occasionally they get vinegar eels.
Easier to culture than live BBS

 

I wonder if they'll be ok in a tank with tons of baby cherry shrimp?

 

It's been over a month now and I have not target fed mine anything. I've also just read that they will eat pond snail eggs and possibly even baby pond snails.

So mine are doing well on just shrimp, snail eggs, and I guess any water fleas or detritus worms they can find. My tank is heavily planted and heavily stocked with reproducing shrimp.

I feed my shrimp, and that's it.

On a side note, I see them quite regularly, which is more than I had hoped for... I expected them to go into my shrimp tank and never be seen again. But they come out of the dense flora and hang out in plain sight pretty often, even when I approach the tank to look at them or feed my shrimp.

 

It's been over a month now and I have not target fed mine anything. I've also just read that they will eat pond snail eggs and possibly even baby pond snails.

So mine are doing well on just shrimp, snail eggs, and I guess any water fleas or detritus worms they can find. My tank is heavily planted and heavily stocked with reproducing shrimp.

I feed my shrimp, and that's it.

On a side note, I see them quite regularly, which is more than I had hoped for... I expected them to go into my shrimp tank and never be seen again. But they come out of the dense flora and hang out in plain sight pretty often, even when I approach the tank to look at them or feed my shrimp.

I have now stopped feeding BBS and they are living off the detritus worms/copepods in my 10 gal. Unfortunately my case seems to be the opposite of yours...I see them maybe once every 2 weeks? Or less.

 

I have now stopped feeding BBS and they are living off the detritus worms/copepods in my 10 gal. Unfortunately my case seems to be the opposite of yours...I see them maybe once every 2 weeks? Or less.

Huh, I was just poking around in the tank with my tweezers tonite trying to put a big pond snail next to an assassin snail to watch the carnage and the female came zooming out of the plants to investigate. Not shy in the least!