Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Defrost the bloodworms with the pellets before feeding to the cod.
The pellets will take up the flavour from the bloodworms and may help training them.

Thanks Werdna, I was thinking about that too- not only for flavour, but colour as well- the pellets are very similar to the tank colour when wet, a bit of red would make them rather more obvious.

Columnmn, unfortunately no, they are a long way from here. I did spot some others quite a bit closer, but still hundreds of km away. Some were products of Indonesia, and at a much lower price, but a >600km round trip just for some fish food makes it uneconomical.

Make sure you feed them together, not blood worms separate to pellets.
And slowly reduce the amount of blood worms you are supplying every few days till you wean down to none

Easier said than done! My "sinking" pellets float, even after 6 hours of soaking, and the Blood Worms sink, so getting both types of food in the same place at the same just isn't happening. It was suggested by the shop where I bought some Brine Shrimp eggs, that rolled oats cooked into porridge was something they would go for, so I cooked up some rolled oats and "sinking pellets" and mixed in some Blood Worms, then froze it into 20g chunks. They have shown no interest in them, apart from taking the blood worms as they appeared. The oats and pellets appear to be untouched small piles of sludge on the bottom after 2 days.

My next attempt to get them to eat pellets will be to soak the pellets in some chopped up beef heart.

My Brine Shrimp have started to hatch, I've tipped some system water into the brine and put it into the sun, in the hope that some algae will grow as feed for the shrimp, so they can grow to a suitable size for the Cod to eat. I wonder if the FT 1.5ppt salinity vs 30ppt they are in now will kill them when I tip them in as food?

Meanwhile the Cod continue to eat the Blood Worms with enthusiasm. How soon before a pure Blood Worm diet, presumably very high in protein, is likely to be a problem for the fish, rather than to my wallet? They are certainly growing well now, with no deaths for a few days.

Perhaps you could also soak the pellets in water to remove the stong fish food smell/taste then redry before soaking in the beef heart Gordon?

Sorry, I can't help with the protein question. I couldn't imagine it becoming a problem though. They'd just grow faster/fatter?

I usually put the frozen tablets into the grow bed stand pipe, along with the pellets. By the time the block reaches the fish tank, it's all defrosted, and the faster syphon water spreads the worms evenly across the fish tank, along with the pellets.

I got sick of defrosting the pellets in a glass of water. This works quickly and well.

I don't know how floating your pellets are, mine are slow sinkers, and by the time they've made it through the system, they aren't floating long before they get snapped up.

I'd call my pellets excruciatingly slow sinkers, it takes the best part of a day for them to sink. Actually, I should try crushing up some of my leftover 3mm floating pellets, something I was going to try weeks ago but forgot about. I reckon they sank faster than the supposed sinking ones I got with the Cod.

With the Blood Worms, I just put 5 squares (1 row) in half a glass of water, and they are all floating freely by the time I walk to the AP system. I just tip a few lots in around the tank so they all can have a go at them, The Cod wait until they have sunk to the bottom though- none come up any more than ~20cm from the bottom.

I think it's normal for them to be shy still.

Mine are the same, I think the furthest I've seen them in the tank is to the half way point. The majority of the time, I can't tell if they are actually there. I take friends out to see my fish, and they just see an empty tank.

Luckily the goldfish in the sump are happily coming up to say hello. And they are growing fast. I think they thrive on the AP food.

Yea- almost impossible to see any of them when the big air pump and water return is flowing fast. I wait until the break caused by a sticky relay every 3 hours when there is just the small air pump with 2 airstones disturbing the surface, it's the only time I can really get a decent view into the FT.
At night they are spread all around the tank, strong torch light doesn't bother them, but in day time they mostly hang around over the darker areas with bioslime, and are a bit hard to see, even with a largely undisturbed water surface.

I don't have any Murray cod but had a similar feeding problem after transport where my fish seemed to forget their pellet training.

Got them started with blackworms which they smashed. Next day threw in crushed pellets (without them seeing me) which they started to consume. Possible that the long wait floating I'm water expanded the pellets to be too large? Maybe not a problem with mc though?

After a few days of crushed pellets they're back on uncrushed 3mm pellets again.

I'm a bit worried about the "forget their pellet training" theory. I reckon mine were never properly pellet trained in the first place, and I wouldn't be at all surprised if "they forgot their pellet training" actually means "not trained, but they are your problem now!" ... but perhaps I'm too much of a cynic

Has anyone actually had fish that were consistently eating pellets for at least a week or more, and then forgot they were supposed to be eating them, for any reason at all, including transport?

Murray cod can go off their food for days for me, but not at the moment with 30C water. I have scooped pellets out of my tank many times as they dont touch them for days.

If you got your fish from Ausyfish, I would say they weren't pellet trained.
Mine definitely weren't