MACNA Day 2: Getting your fish to eat

Our favourite presentation so far this MACNA has been Kelly Jedliki’s workshop on getting fish to eat if they’re not. Finicky eaters, stressed or diseased fish often waste away to nothing quickly and hobbyists are often powerless to help.

This presentation blew my mind. You force feed the fish until they can learn to eat on their own, or get healthy again. I don’t know why this is so revolutionary to me. I have a cat who’s had jaundice a couple of times. Every time she gets it, she stops eating, which makes a bad situation worse. The solution is to get her to eat. Either by trying new food or by force feeding her. Why wouldn’t fish be the same?

Here’s Kelly’s video. I’ve cut it down to the demonstration portion of the presentation.

Here’s what you missed:

• fish don’t eat for a number of reasons (stress, illness, etc)
• to anethesize your fish, first weigh it, record its weight
• for anesthesia, there’s a drug called MS-222.  It’s available from vets, drug stores or possibly farm supply stores
• You want to administer the anesthesia at 100ppm to a treatment tank.

A lot more reading is available in Kelly’s subforum on Marine Depot.

Update from the Dallas Marine Society.

It’s MS-222 — you can order it here. I was thinking about ordering some, but I wish I had more of an idea what the shelf life was.

She has suggestions for additional items that are worth having in your “fish medicine chest” here.

(link)