Best Diet For Apistos?

[Cooder]

Hey guys,

I believe this is my first post, so first ill say Hi, and that im another user from Australia. Some may recognize the name from ACE Forums or QLDAF. Before i ask my question i would tell my first experience with apistos which was rather tragic. I bought a german pair of agassizii double red from FishChicks, had them setup in my 2ft tank with all going well, i noticed that i could not see the female after a few days and the male had started to come "out of his shell" (if i may use a shellie term, im a Tang fan!) yet the female wasnt. I didnt think much of it as i know what new fish are like when added to the aquarium, so another couple of days went by, no female... i eventually found her body dead for a few days, stuck in the mesh of my large anubias plants. My first piece of advice on this forum, ALWAYS TAKE THE MESH POTS OFF YOUR PLANTS!! lol.

Anyway getting to the gist of things, what would be the most healthy diet for my second go at beautiful apistos? This time im going for either A. bitaenitia flame back or A. baenschi inka 50.

I feed New life Spectrum Cichlid formula as a staple to my tangs, 2 times a day at least and frozen blood worms every second day at last feed. When i can get some i also hatch BBS, mainly for fry.

Any suggestions as too a good quality staple food for apistos?

almost forgot to mention this new tank will be setup soon, currently waiting for substrate and new testing kit before seeding a new filter and purchasing plants... I will surely put some photos up of my new setup when it materialises.

Thanks for the great forum,

Im looking forward to reading some of Mike Wise' and others articles... very interesting stuff what ive read so far...

Cody

 

[Mike Wise]

Variety is best. My apistos get 90% live foods; mostly baby brine shrimp. White/Grindal worms 1 or 2 times weekly is great, but too much causes fish to become obese and get fatty livers. Mosquito larvae are probably on of the best foods if you can find it frozen or raise your own. The rest I feed is various frozen foods. Since the original Mardel Aquarien brand flake was discontinued in the 1980s and I can't find frog brittle anymore (clouds water really fast but the fish loved it) I haven't found any prepared foods that my fish really like.

 

[regani]

Welcome to the forum. I feed NLS (Thera A and Grow) and Ocean Nutrition Cichlids Omniflakes as staple with good results. I occasionally mix in spirulina flakes and feed grindal or black worms and BBS as life foods on occasion as well.

 

[Cooder]

Ok, cool thanks,

I was actually wondering about mosquito larvae... i should try to find some or get some going.

Also what are your thoughts on earthworms?

 

[Mike Wise]

Earthworms are excellent, but again to much leads to obese fish with fatty livers. Try to get the smaller red worms. Some of the larger species reportedly are not very tasty (to the fish, that is).

 

[Cooder]

Ok, Thanks Mike...

 

[edwliang]

anyone use Aquarium-Munster, German tropical fish food, biofish food? invented by Dr bassleer. since it is cold, and i am getting lazy, i have not been feeding my apisto with bbs for months. now, i use Tetra bit complete, and Munster Biofish Food.

 

[Borelliiguy]

This thread is something I have searched a hundred times on google. Everyone varies but I need to tell you with absolute certainty that New Life Spectrum and Apistos go extremely well together. You don't need the chiclid formula just the regular flake. Feed them for a month and then compare what they looked like then and now, alternatively watch this vid and see for yourself.

Click HD

To be clear in all my years keeping apistos, no other diet has come close to making the apistos go beyond having good colors and instead glow. My apisto panduro looks fluorescent blue right now. IF I showed you the pic you'd think I photoshopped it lol

 

[Cooder]

Thanks for that vid, the difference wasnt MASSIVE imo but that was quite an improvement. After a bit of reading, i have no doubt that NLS is good to feed, and that video shows why aswell.

Ive never liked flake, seems to be messy compared to pellets to me, and the NLS pellets that i use dont disintegrate into lots of particles when attacked which makes cleaning easier...

So, a varied diet is best for apistos, (as is for all cichlids) and dont over feed rich foods such as bloodworms, bbs, earthworms etc. I dont think ill buy anything specially for the apistos, except for getting some brine eggs to hatch, they work for my tang fry anyway. Small feeds of NLS reguarly, with bloodworms every couple of days aswell, and a combination of frozen/live food for spawn inducement,

Sounds good to me!

Cody

 

[Jonm]

Borelliiguy, have you noticed any differences with spawning ratios/differences since feeding NLS?

 

[Mike Wise]

I've tried NLS in various formulas, both flakes and pellets, along with many other brands. My Westies eat it all; all of my apistos just spit it out. Maybe they sift it out of the substrate later; maybe I just spoil my fish. I don't know.

 

[Borelliiguy]

Borelliiguy, have you noticed any differences with spawning ratios/differences since feeding NLS?

To be 100% with you the short answer to that is yes. I have seen a massive result in eggs laid and free swimming fry. But before I get to that I want to state that in the wild by the time the apistos or any fish for that matter gets their food it has gone through the natural cycle. From the rays of the sun through to the apistos mouth and because of that in the wild they'd get all the vitamins they need. These live/frozen food farms feed what is going to faten up their product so to me, it's great for spawning but live/frozen foods in terms of vitamins and goodness doesn't compare to nls.

I have panduro, hongsloi and agz and since switching to nls the spawns have doubled and tripled. Pre nls, my hongsloi spawns were about 50 free swimming. After the month of pure nls then frozen+nls my hongsloi spawn went to 120+ free swimming. My panduros went from 20 free swimming to about 50. I have had so much fry I had to give them away in each spwan. Luckily my lfs knows I breed good stock. I think it's simply a matter of vitamins. As humans the more vitamins we get the healthy our skin so why not have things the same for fish? And nls has more vitamins than protein lol

@coder the fact that you noticed the difference is evidence enough because the camera I'm using is a simple point and shoot that isn't close to the scale i'd prefer to pick up the changes.

I also want to add that there is a downside to nls because pre nls, the courtship would last a while. Since feeding nls exclusively, I simply have to add frozen brine or b-worm for a day maybe two and they get straight to it. Previously it'd take me at least a week and live foods to jump start the spawn.

I didn't believe in the claims of ANY fish food. But I gotta give credit where credit is due and personally, I don't plan on feeding anything but nls. I got some apisto inka on dec.24 and now that their colors have come through I'm going to add them to my planted community and as a result, they'll be starting a diet of 100% nls. Their colors are not spectacular at the moment but it's a fish that in my opinion has great potential so it's going to be 100% nls and we can see the results. Perhaps the improvement will be marginal but I'm willing to bet my 50 gal the improvements will be vast?

Excuse the long winded reply but I'm part of the community and when something works it works and I believe that info should be put out there for everyone else's consideration

 

[edwliang]

so, anyone has tried Dr.Bassleer's Biofish Food???