Cichlid Foods... What do you feed?

RDTigger

RDTigger

Newest member of F.A.R.T.
Jul 4, 2009
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Pawleys Island, SC
Starting a Mbuna community and reading all the different foods out there.. I will have yellow labs, Acei and other herbivore and mellow Haps/Mbuna..

So what cichlids do you keep and what foods work best...



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The labs are mostly vegetarian with some meat supplement. The others are pretty much all vegetarian.

The problem is that almost every last commercial food that is marketed for vegetarian cichlids has a lot of meat in it. I feel one would do best to find the few that are all veggie. (Good luck.) Or instead feed stuff like finely chopped nori, romaine lettuce, spinach, etc. It's been a while since I kept Africans so perhaps there are a lot more commercial choices now that aren't so meaty.
 
This Hikari Cichlid Excel looks promising for vegetarians..but the main ingredient is...fish meal. lol

Guaranteed Analysis Crude Protein 35% min. Crude Fat 4% min. Crude Fiber 3% max. Moisture 10% max. Ash 13% max. Phosphorus 0.8% min. Ingredients: Fish meal, wheat flour, wheat-germ meal, flaked corn (processed), spirulina, dehydrated alfalfa meal, krill meal, brewer's dried yeast, enzyme, astaxanthin, garlic, DL-methionine, monosodium glutamate, and vitamins and minerals including stabilized Vitamin C.

Additives Vitamin A 18,000 IU/kg Vitamin C 94 mg/kg Vitamin D3 3,700 IU/kg Vitamin E 110 mg/kg Copper 17 mg/kg Feeding Suggestions: Feed two to four times daily the amount your fish will eat within a few minutes. Remove all remaining food after the feeding period to avoid over-feeding and the water quality problems associated with this action.
 
I have a peaceful community african tank. I mainly use Hikaris Cichlid gold and Cichlid staple along with a Spirulina flake. If the fish are young/small watch the pellet size. Hikari makes 4 sizes of pellets I think and some are too big. For some variety I add on occasion algae wafers, zucchini, spinach and other flaked/pelleted foods.
 
kianna said:
I have a peaceful community african tank. I mainly use Hikaris Cichlid gold and Cichlid staple along with a Spirulina flake. If the fish are young/small watch the pellet size. Hikari makes 4 sizes of pellets I think and some are too big. For some variety I add on occasion algae wafers, zucchini, spinach and other flaked/pelleted foods.
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Yea, far too many foods labeled "cichlid" are for carnivores... There are so many different types of "cichlid" that it is just too general..
 
I feed my elec yellows and others Hikari Cichlid Gold and Ken's supreme flake. Occasional frozen brine shrimp or decapsulated baby brines shrimp eggs. Tank bred and raised will generally accept almost any foods offered.
 
New life spectrum and HBH super Veggie 8 is a good balance and the HBH super veggie first ingredient is spirulina but there are a lot of combo's you can choose, spirulina with the first ingredient as fish meal is junk with very little veggie to offer..

As for fish foods go try to maintain the foods with the ingredients and percentages in mind stick to foods with the percentages around 46% protein anything higher could cause bloat and the first ingredients in most foods as they transcend is your quality of foods and supplements, the further form the top the lower the quality..
 
NLS 1mm cichlid formula, Nutrafin Max Spirulina Flake, and occasionally broken up Omega 1 veggie wafers. IMO, for mbuna, it seems as though NLS and Dainichi are the 2 most highly regarded foods. I was told this when I bought my stock so I went with NLS because I can't find Dainichi around here.
 
I feed mines flakes and they even jump over it and go crazy but every now and then they eat the algea that falls into the water from my cascade fiter lol
 
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