How to get the food past the dithers?

[The Jones Camp]

I brought home my first pair of apistos, which are actually my first cichlids ever. I'm used to standard community fish who either go right to the flake or sinking food, or bottom dwelling algae-eating types who do their own thing.

This afternoon I fed the tank with a small amount of thawed brine shrimp (Hikari). The brass tetra gobbled a crazy amount, the oto cats and the shrimp cared not a bit, and the apistos seemed like they were in slow motion. They seemed to only go for a shrimp after they had eyed it, deliberated, and then made a conscious decision that, yes, this was worth ingesting.

I know they are still new to the tank and have had a rough day. But it did make me wonder if I need to come up with a better strategy for getting food to them more directly without overfeeding the dither fish. I can't afford to buy live food regularly and have never kept cultures. Nor do I really have a room for culturing live food.

The male did seem to look to the surface when he smelled food, but I can't believe he would do well against speedy hungry tetras. The female was even more shy to eat.

Tomorrow I'm trying frozen daphnia (again from Hikari).

Does anyone have any suggestions?

 

[Cathy G]

I use an eye dropper or turkey baster to squirt food past the upper munchers. You can try soaking some flake food if you wish, or you can 'plunk' down some sinking cichlid pellets like the New Life kind. (I use the 3mm size). Thaw frozen foods in a bit of tank/clean water and use the baster to get it to the bottom feeders.
Cathy

 

[valice]

I do target feeding with a pincer...
Beating away the other dithers with the pincers...

 

[STOKER]

I use high protien trout pellets that sink as they break up all the fish have achance to feed.

Mike

 

[tjudy]

One trick is to get a piece of 3/4" or 1" pvc that reaches the bottom. Drop the food through the pipe and it will sink through to the bottom, avoiding the dithers.