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Q- Now, food ... what is the difference between the flaked and the pelleted cichlid food? Should I be using one over the other? The bumblebees, they
vacuum up the flakes, I am currently feeding, without thought (and that is what it looks like too!) The arautus (danged if I can spell that yet!) "chew", but they are still like little dust busters. You can forget food hitting the gravel in this tank :) I've been using a general cichlid flaked food I got at the LFS. That and I noticed the pelleted stuff comes in different sizes?
A- I believe that variety is more important than whether you feed pellets or flakes. I feed both and many different kinds. The fish never have the same meal twice in a day or maybe even a week (except for the mbuna which I feed mostly vegetable based foods). If you feed flake for a while, it may take the fish time to get used to floating pellets. I find that most all juveniles can eat the mini pellets made by Hikari. Their Cichlid Complete is another good food, it is a sinking pellet. OSI makes a Cichlid Staple pellet some of which float and some sink. I also like the Cichlid Excel (I can't remember who makes it, I think that too is Hikari) for the mbuna. I have many different flakes too, spirulina, staple, color, earthworm brine shrimp, vegetable (all of which I sell at great prices by the way), a great
flake that contains plankton, krill, and spirulina (which I also sell) is great for omnivores and micropreditors. Les is correct about freshness. I keep a little bit of feed out and the rest is sealed in the freezer. The only food a keep refrigerated all the time is the pure spirulina flake. It is so fresh that it needs to be kept in the fridge.
Q- What is some good cheap food for Cichlids?
A- Most people hate getting algae in their tanks but its a source of cheap food for the fish. Take s spare tank with some rocks ,fill with water and let it sit outside exposed to the sun. Soon you will notice algae growing As soon as the rocks have enough algae growing on it take it out and place into yStocklist tank. Place another rock in the tank. When the fish has clean the rock of its algae replace it with another one.. Its cheap food
A- I feed my cichlids a home made shrimp mix that AD.Konning showed on his site, I by fresh shrimp from the store and some clams and spinach leafs and ground them together making sure that the shrimp is not grounded down to much, I feed them this every other day and let them fast one day between the feeding, I have seen great results in there color and I never had bloat. I had forgot to explain how I do that, I put it in the blender and I ground the spinach first but not to fine until I put the shrimp in, I use the shell less shrimp and then I blend in the clam and shrimp making sure that there is little chunks of shrimp. Then I boil some water with unflavored gelatin and mix it together in a bowel and then put it in some (1" in depth) baking pans and put it in the freezer then when it starts to get sold I cut it in cubes and then let it continue to freeze. After that i take it out and put them in plastic bags and put them back in the freezer. When I feed them I take the cubes out and put them in a cup of warm water and let them get a little soft and kind of luke warm and drop them in the tank. The cichlids love it, I have seen some mixes on the net that use peas and green beans instead of spinach and I have used to mix an all green mix for my non meat eaters. My bristle nose's just love this mix. You can even put the mix in a freezer bags and smooth it out and put it in the freezer and the take it out and cut it into cube's. I spend about $ 30.00 a month on my mix and it last the whole month sometimes a little longer if I give flakes in between the mix feeds. I have used this for my fry but I ground it up very fine and I see very nice colors when they are big enough to sell to my lfs stores, they always say I have colorful cichlids.
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