Diet

I am curious to what brand and product or home recipe or vegetable people are feeding there Cichlids. I at present am feeding Wadley Cichlid Flakes, Nutrafin MaX Cichlid Sinking Granules, and Nutafin Max Cichlid Spirulina Sticks. I Have in the past used varied cheap and expensive products including vegetables Boiled pumpkin, mashed boiled peas, Icebhurg lettuce leaves (not a favorite) and zuchini (which they attack but makes a horrible mess). I recently watched a Cichlid Care dvd that instructed keepers to beware of protein rich and color enhancing foods as they lead to medical problems and the hormones can create male fish only but most pakaged foods I have found contain protein. Any advice is always appreciated.

I like NLS (New Life Spectrum), I even feed it to my wild caught tropheus... They haven't seen a spirulina flake since the first 2 weeks I had them. From what I researched, it's got more to do with what the actual ingredient is that supplies the protein more than wether or not the food has protein in it. A way to look at it is the fish would digest a piece of herring easier than a beef heart, both contain protein tho. I'm definitely not a specialist on this but what I found thru research did make sense. For many years I fed spirulina flakes exclusively because of the "protein" problems associated with other foods but my opinion has changed based on results I'm seeing with my own fish

I feed NLS also. I have noticed, at least with my fish, that the fish produce less waste when I feed the more expensive food.

+1 to NLS, absolutely love it. Just got a new 5gal bucket of 1mm pellets in the mail today, actually.

I haven't seen NLS locally so I googled it I can get it posted to my door for nearly the same price as buying my most expensive food. But first will have a chat to the local store see what price they can give me i'm thinking it will be cheaper still. Thanks everyone for your input.

Over here it's cheaper to order online. My first purchase was a small container to make sure my fish would eat it and after that, I started ordering the 5 lb. bucket. It's more economical to buy the bucket -- I keep mine in the freezer and refill the small containers as needed. The stuff isn't cheap, but a little goes a long way!

I also get the 5lb buckets, best deal and don't have to order very often. I get the 1mm cichlid formula and 1mm Thera A formula and mix it half and half. I also use the Grow formula for fry and it works great. (I buy the smaller containers of grow cuz I don't use as much of it)

I like NLS also, the only time I really had any issues with bloat I was feeding spirulina
flakes.... I also feed the flake mix from Daves Rare Fish, and blanched, hulled, but not mashed green peas and raw zucchini wedges... no need to cook or blanch, and the fish
eat them down to the rind before they get soft and mushy.

I use "Aquatic Nature Afr. Cichlid Exel Color" pellets which I think are as good as NLS. It has spirulina and astaxanthine as natural color enhancers. I also use homemade frozen shrimpmix which of course also contains spirulina and astaxanthine.

I also buy the 5lb buckets of NLS. My fish seem to like it better than anything else i've tried.

football mom wrote:I like NLS also, the only time I really had any issues with bloat I was feeding spirulina
flakes.... I also feed the flake mix from Daves Rare Fish, and blanched, hulled, but not mashed green peas and raw zucchini wedges... no need to cook or blanch, and the fish
eat them down to the rind before they get soft and mushy.

I boil my sliced zucchini and that probably contributes to the mess it leaves. I usually wait till a day before a water change giving any vegetable for that reason.