New BN's aren't eating after 5 days!!

Hi all, I've had my Bn's (one male, one female) for 5 days now and they're still NOT eating! :(I've tried cucumber, zucchini, carrot and the algae wafers. Nothing. There is little to no algae build up on my tank either. They do have a piece of driftwood in there that they are fond of.

The water is perfect for them, temperature is 24-26 degrees. The light is on for only 12 hours of the day. I have two large sponge filters & a normal filter for flow. There is lots of plants & the substrate is sand. They are in a tank by themselves, I'm hoping to breed them-for fun-as they're pretty cool fish!

They appear to be quite happy, they are getting closer to each other and the female has been searching out the caves (more than the male! He's made his own little nest out of sand..). Their dorsal fins are up most of the time & they're getting braver in terms of staying out when I'm around.

What else can I try to feed them? Is pear safe for them? I'm not too sure that they were fed any veggies at the aquarium, so how can I entice them to eat them? Any help would be much appreciated! Sorry if this has been posted before, I couldn't find the post.

just relax

As long as they are not loosing condition then its fine. their fav food of all is the slime that grows on things. they love that so if there wasnt a bristlenose in there before they will be having a field day munching on all of that. particularly at night.

On the night issue, 12hrs a day is too long for a light to be on. i recommend 8-10hrs. any more than that an you are just encouraging algae to grow

Hi &   Doug is spot on again about the slime and as you have not said anything about them losing weight they must be eating something,
how long are you leaving the veg in the tank for and are you feeding after lights out.

Thanks Doug. I haven't had any fish in there before. The tank was setting up for 1.5 weeks before I had got the Bn's. I got them with the intention to breed. I will turn the light off more! Thank you muchly.

I'm leaving it in there overnight. I can't tell if they are loosing body condition or not as I don't see the male too much-he might be though. He's the one I'm more worried about. Little fat girl is eating the slime (when sunlight hits the side of the tank). I haven't seen him go there ever, in saying that he might have when I am asleep/not there.