feeding my fish.best food?

[new2rams]

whats the best food to feed rams and cichlids? i`ve heard don`t feed them bloodworms.then i`ve heard feed them bloodworms.i feed them shrimp pellets,algea wafers,and a small spectrum pellet.what else would you suggest?thanks.

 

[ste12000]

I feed all my fish, both adults and babies on newly hatched baby brineshrimp and when i have enough they also get microworm daily..Bloodworms, high protein pellet for fry and a small amount of flake make up the food list in my fishroom...

 

[Mike Wise]

My apisto diet is mostly baby brine shrimp. They also get occasional feedings of live Grindal worms and frozen foods (brine shrimp, gammerus shrimp, glassworms). I don't use bloodworms because I am very allergic to them. There are also reports that some brands get their bloodworms from areas contaminated with heavy metals.

 

[Zack Wilson]

I feed quite a bit of baby brine shrimp to my dwarfs, quite often by function of the fact that I'm feeding it to the babies. I also try to feed them regularly with some diced up red wigglers (E. foetida earthworms). I also regularly feed them with frozen brine shrimp that I enhance with some supplements and occasional feedings of grindal worms. My Dicrossus maculatus, for whatever reason, love pellet foods and so I feed them regularly with New Life Spectrum small pellet and intersperse with the other foods mentioned.

I'm also trying out PrettyBird's new pellet line UltraColor with good initial results. They make a lot of big claims and have an interesting ingredients list. We'll see how they hold up long-term.

 

[georgedv]

I have been with wrong impression that too much bbs can become a laxative. As I read this thread it seems this is wrong. How often do you all feed bbs and if there is a way to give a quantity to feed an adult dwarf cichlid?

Zack, can you give me some more info on your D. Maculatus. I have three and eat all sorts of things, but I am not sure about their proper diet....veggies or meat?

thanks

g

 

[ste12000]

I have been with wrong impression that too much bbs can become a laxative. As I read this thread it seems this is wrong. How often do you all feed bbs and if there is a way to give a quantity to feed an adult dwarf cichlid?

I give mine a feed of microworm in the morning before work, on my return they get a feed of BBS, and then throughout the evening i drip minute drops of bbs into every tank, there is nearly always food infront of my fish. Daily waterchanges of upto 50% sort the water quality and i have started to keep young ancistrus and corydoras in the tanks to mop up any uneaten food..

Works for me!!!

 

[Zack Wilson]

bbs, maculatus

So far as I'm aware, bbs are highly nutritious as long as you feed them to your fish within 12 hours or so (preferably earlier) of hatching. They begin absorbing their yolks as soon as the hatching process begins, and all of the nutrition and energy they need for the first 12 hours is in that yolk. It is just as good for your fry. Once that yolk is used up, though, they are mostly exoskeleton. At that point you are feeding your fry roughage.

I generally try to use up all of my bbs within a few hours of when the majority have hatched. I have three cultures rotating and restart one each day.

As to the maculatus, I don't know that I can really say what is the best diet for them. I can only tell you what's worked for me thus far. I would guess they are largely carnivorous, but they may get some decaying vegetable material or fungi in their diets as well. Mine eat NLS pellets as their staple and they stay plenty fat enough on this. They'll eat just about anything though and I do offer them chopped redworms (E. foetida) and brine shrimp and such as well. They breed quite well on the pellets alone though. Just had a spawn of about 120 fry that came from my first generation of captive macs and they were eating NLS alone.

I'm now also experimenting on a group of about 50 4 week old F1 macs with this UltraColor stuff to see how that seems to compare in growth and color. It definitely expands and softens more than NLS, but it makes it easier for the little ones to pick it apart, so that may prove to be an advantage. They're eating it well and staying fat, so I guess time will tell if growth and color are good.

 

[apistobob]

My fish get a daily feeding of bbs every evening. I start a fresh batch every night. I feed fairly heavy as the shrimp will survive for several hours or longer and the fish will feed heavily. Even full grown adults will thrive on this diet.

However, I also feed a lot of other foods. Microworms are a staple for fry. I give rare feedings (every other week or so) of white worms to some of my adults. At any given time I have 5 or 6 types of pelleted food that I rotate feedings of. I do not use flake as my tanks are so heavily planted that the fish often cannot get to the flake. Sinking pellets get down to them and they really enjoy working on the pellets.

Here is a page on feeding that I put together
www.dwarfcichlid.com/Good_food.php

Bob

 

[Razzaq]

hi,

Nice Information

Thanks for posting very good relevant useful information and links...

thanks


Take care

 

[Hassles]

Microwafers

I have noted that my fish are find of Hikari Micro Wafers and Micro Pellets. I am pleased to have a dried food that they so readily accept. Oh yes they also love their live blackworms (live & freeze dried) but I nio longer feed Bloodworms.
Microworms are fed also when suitable (eg fry in the tanks) and mosquito larvae. BBS is something I will need to get underway.

 

[hmglis]

i also use Hikari microwafers and they love that stuff. i also feed HBH cichlid attack!, spirulina flakes, HBH color flakes, reg, tetramin, and omega one shrimp flakes...all crumbled up of course. i wanted to raise fish where live food wasnt the core of their diet just in case i had to go somewhere a few days and for the past 4 years its worked well for me. for fry i use Hikari first bites. im not against live foods or anything i just try to keep it as simple as possible and yes, my fish get frozen bbs along with mysis shrimp 1-2x a week.