recently I purchased 2 peacock bass from a pet shop. the shop worker told me that they were eating pellets just fine. I brought them home and all that they want to eat is live food, I have tried a few different types of cichlid pellets and they just let them rot. I went back to the pet shop and they sold me the food that they feed them, and they still don't care to eat it. Does anyone have any suggestions on how to train these fish to eat pelletized food?

hey ive not kept peacock bass before, but prior to getting oscars, i thought about getting them, and i was told by my LFS that they were hard to get off of live food, so i didnt get them... if i were you... i might try using some crickets for a while, get them used to picking foods off the surface, and sneak in a pellet or two, and see if they take it. sooner or later they will eat it hopefully. feed sparingly in the mean time. as a general rule, a hungry fish, will eat if fed.

I have the same problem with my oscar the pet shop sold me pellets that they said they fed them but he wont eat them so I put some feeder fish in there and I think he's eaten one of them but not sure if he's eating at all

Like Win said hungry fish will eat. Try to get a routine. What I do every morning is get out of bed turn the light on and go thaw out some bloodworms/brine shrimp. They know its feeding time and will come to the right corner of the tank where i feed them and wait. I turn off the light when I go to work and turn it back on when i get home and feed them. They know its feeding time when the light turns on. When they know its feeding time i swear i could throw a truck tire in there and they would try to eat it. I have never had problems with them eating, and I beleive it is because of this routine.

i think its a case of weaning them off live food slowly, as win said give live surface food and mix it with afew pellets gradually increasing the amount of pellets and decreaing the amount of live food.

do alto fo ppl keep peacock bass?

there gorgeous fish

hey man i had the same problem.
i first fed him frozen bloodworms for like 2 weeks then he started to eat freeze dried shrimp then he finally started eating pellets

if there are any other fish in the tank, he will see them getting peelets and he will eventually get the idea that they are food