taming cichlids

[Tjaard de Vries]

perhaps this idea is nuts, but my fish know me, they swim towards the
front window when I'm around the tank at feeding times, so I wonder... is
it difficult to make cichlids hand tame? it'd be nice :) .

[[email protected]]

On Sun, 14 Mar 2004 15:00:59 +0100, Tjaard de Vries
> wrote:

>perhaps this idea is nuts, but my fish know me, they swim towards the
>front window when I'm around the tank at feeding times, so I wonder... is
>it difficult to make cichlids hand tame? it'd be nice :) .

It's not difficult at all but some of them will bite. Don't think you
can risk your fingers with small Cichlids, some of them pack quite a
nip. I remember having a Lamprologus hanging on my finger even when I
lifted it out of the water.

Steve

[Paul]

wrote in message ...
>On Sun, 14 Mar 2004 15:00:59 +0100, Tjaard de Vries
> wrote:
>
>>perhaps this idea is nuts, but my fish know me, they swim towards the
>>front window when I'm around the tank at feeding times, so I wonder... is
>>it difficult to make cichlids hand tame? it'd be nice :) .
>
>It's not difficult at all but some of them will bite. Don't think you
>can risk your fingers with small Cichlids, some of them pack quite a
>nip. I remember having a Lamprologus hanging on my finger even when I
>lifted it out of the water.
>
>Steve

lol, the cheeky little fella!

[Mark Stone]

Tjaard de Vries > wrote in message >...
> perhaps this idea is nuts, but my fish know me, they swim towards the
> front window when I'm around the tank at feeding times, so I wonder... is
> it difficult to make cichlids hand tame? it'd be nice :) .

It's not uncommon for Oscars to be "hand tame" -- Many ppl claim that
they will eat out of your hand and rub up against your arm when doing
aquarium maintenance. This has never happened to me, but I've heard
dozens of claims. --Mark

[Tjaard de Vries]

On Sun, 14 Mar 2004 18:24:44 -0800, Mark Stone wrote:

> It's not uncommon for Oscars to be "hand tame" -- Many ppl claim that
> they will eat out of your hand and rub up against your arm when doing
> aquarium maintenance. This has never happened to me, but I've heard
> dozens of claims. --Mark

hm, if angels, acaras and severums did, it'd be nice :) . I only get
bitten when I get too near to my severums' eggs/fry :) .

[JazzyB]

A friend of mine told me that his oscar does this "rubbing" all the time
when he's trying to feed him.
"Mark Stone" > wrote in message
om...
> Tjaard de Vries > wrote in message
>...
> > perhaps this idea is nuts, but my fish know me, they swim towards the
> > front window when I'm around the tank at feeding times, so I wonder...
is
> > it difficult to make cichlids hand tame? it'd be nice :) .
>
> It's not uncommon for Oscars to be "hand tame" -- Many ppl claim that
> they will eat out of your hand and rub up against your arm when doing
> aquarium maintenance. This has never happened to me, but I've heard
> dozens of claims. --Mark

[battlelance]

On Sun, 14 Mar 2004 14:28:41 +0000, wrote:

>It's not difficult at all but some of them will bite. Don't think you
>can risk your fingers with small Cichlids, some of them pack quite a
>nip. I remember having a Lamprologus hanging on my finger even when I
>lifted it out of the water.

Tell me about it, my arm hair got attacked by hungry Hongi's on the
weekend...

who needs hot wax!

[Kelly]

My acei's were very good at eating the spirlina sticks for my hand, the
rest are too nippy though, they get the fingers more often than the food,
especially the bumbleebees. Since the addition of the large eyebiter, I dont
really try hand feeding the africans anymore...ouch!
I feed my polypertus birchirs with a stick and am hoping to get them to
take from hand, as well as my fire eel, but he is still to shy to eat from a
stick. I had oscars that were good at taking from hand, but as they got
bigger, I tended to just throw the food in, just in case :)
Kelly