am i over feeding my fish

[darksheep]

hi ive got 6 chiclids in my tank, and was wondering if im over feeding them i give them 3 pinches once a day at nite and its all gone within say 5 to mins, they eat the flakes like they are going outta fasion but when i watch them eat it looks like the flakes are going every where is there any other food i can give them too, i no i cant give bloodworms cause i got 2 red zebras and they suppose to die if they eat them the other 4 fish are yelow electrics and a blue araca any suggestion, and is it possble to feed fish veges such as peas or potatao

 

[millym]

hi there i feed my mob romaine lettuce, we dont have chilids but ours love it. i pour boiling water over it to soften it for a min or 2 & then wedge it under a rock. a lot of fish like other stuff as well like zucchini. can your fish have tubifex worm cubes?? or daphinia?? ours love that as well. + algae wafers are always a hit too! when i first tried the lettuce thing none of them were interested but after a few attempts they really went for it when they realised it was FOOOOOOOd

 

[Humbug]

im sure there will be no problems giving them frozen bloodworm. its their natural food!

 

[mjs1]

I recently created a new set up with malawi cichlids and was given the following advice by my lfs. A big no to tubifex, bloodworm, beefheart ect anything to meaty contains high amounts of complex proteins that cichlids cannot digest fast enough and can cause infections. Insted feed krill, brine shrimp, chopped cockle as a suppliment to flake algae wafers and other dried food. variety is good and if possible feed more than once per day only not as much. Hope this helps.

 

[Eelzor]

My fish are full on scarfers, angels & loaches especially, so I give them a 1inchx1inchxquarter inch cube of bloodworms once at night and once in the morning, and since they like a bit every now and then I sometimes give algae wafers and flakes.

 

[Sondan]

Shoot last weekend we had some cold shrimp like you have on a party platter...well I bit off a piece about the size of my pinky knuckle and I thought I was going to die with laughter. My 5 inch tiger oscar nearly choked to death trying to get it all down. (But he DID make it...after about 15 minutes ) I keep telling people they are garbage disposals.
Signed,
Sondan

 

[Debo]

I'm having a party on Sat. night and we are having shrimp. Everyone always makes me wait to feed the fish till they are here as they like to watch the feeding frenzy in the tank. I'll have to try the shrimp thing!!!
Deb

 

[wuvmybetta]

I think it depends on their age to decide if your overfeeding, younger fish need food more often. I have several young frontosa and I feed them...a lot! They get flakes or pellets in the morning and a wide variety of food in the evenings..their favorite is frozen krill. I shell it for them and tear it into small pieces and they go bonkers for it, I love watching them snag pieces from each other

If you want to try veggies maybe you can chop and blanch some zucchinni or simmer some chopped spinach with a touch of garlic

 

[thecichlidaddict]

First of all, cichids ARE pigs, and will eat much more then what is healthy for them. If you feed a cichlid as much as they will eat, and swallow in a couple of minutes twice a day then they've got a good diet. This is a very rough guide. I include swallow because cichlids can stuff themselves with enough food to keep chewing for a while.

Secondly, any advice on what to feed 'African' cichlids is bad advice. Bloodworms will be fine for some Africans, and will kill others over time. You should be feeding according to the species that you keep - generalizations are bad.


Now Darksheep,

I have found pellets to be cleaner on the aquarium then flakes, and that is primarely what I feed them. I find veggies to be a pain in the butt and a little messy. Your Yellow Labs are predators in the wild. They prey on insects and small invertabrates. A steady diet of standard cichlid foods is fine. Live foods can be any invertabrate, brine shrimp are popular. The Zebras are omnivorous, grazing algae and eating invertabrates that they find along the way. They should have a diet consisting of both standard cichlid foods and spirulina flakes. They can handle inverabrates as a supplement as well. I would not give either of these fish any type of worms, it is not part of their natural diet, and is not good for them.
The Blue Acara is from a completely different type of environment. They can eat most of what you can throw at them, flakes, pellets, invertabrates, worms. They also munch on the odd plant, something that barely exists in the African rift lakes.

 

[mjs1]

I recently created a new set up with malawi cichlids and was given the following advice by my lfs. A big no to tubifex, bloodworm, beefheart ect anything to meaty contains high amounts of complex proteins that cichlids cannot digest fast enough and can cause infections. Insted feed krill, brine shrimp, chopped cockle as a suppliment to flake algae wafers and other dried food. variety is good and if possible feed more than once per day only not as much. Hope this helps.

thecichlidaddict

Do you think my lfs was giving good advice? please see quote, although I have been researching thier diet on the net, I always find conflicting opinions This concerns me as these are great fish and I don't want to mess up. Do you have any good links or know of any good reference books? Having looked at your posts on some of the other forums your opinion seems worthy of notice.
thanks respect

 

[Innes]

hi ive got 6 chiclids in my tank, and was wondering if im over feeding them i give them 3 pinches once a day at nite and its all gone within say 5 to mins, they eat the flakes like they are going outta fasion but when i watch them eat it looks like the flakes are going every where is there any other food i can give them too, i no i cant give bloodworms cause i got 2 red zebras and they suppose to die if they eat them the other 4 fish are yelow electrics and a blue araca any suggestion, and is it possble to feed fish veges such as peas or potatao

sounds like overfeeding to me, you should feed them small amounts and not several times a day, however it is not the eating of too much food which causes a problem (except for a few fish like Red Tailed Cats) as they will just stop eating, it is the leftover food (pollution) in the tank that cause ammonia, nitrites and nitrates.

This can be helped by removing all uneaten food and also doing regular water changes

 

[thecichlidaddict]

I recently created a new set up with malawi cichlids and was given the following advice by my lfs. A big no to tubifex, bloodworm, beefheart ect anything to meaty contains high amounts of complex proteins that cichlids cannot digest fast enough and can cause infections. Insted feed krill, brine shrimp, chopped cockle as a suppliment to flake algae wafers and other dried food. variety is good and if possible feed more than once per day only not as much. Hope this helps. 

thecichlidaddict

Do you think my lfs was giving good advice? please see quote, although I have been researching thier diet on the net, I always find conflicting opinions This concerns me as these are great fish and I don't want to mess up. Do you have any good links or know of any good reference books?

Well thanks mjs1 )

I think that the advice you got is along the right lines, and sounds good to me It's not really the protein as much as the fat that does the damage though. I wouldn't feed any worms to any mbuna, their consistancy is tough for them to digest. Mbuna have intestines that are extremely long, built to digest large amounts of vegetation, too much fatty food can cause blockage and lead to the dreaded 'Malawi bloat'. This isn't an instant effect - the problem is more long term then short term. It's not too late for somebody feeding improperly to change their method.
I dont' feed beefheart, or any mammal based food to any fish if any kind. The meat is a completely different makeup then what fish are designed to eat. Even the huge aquatic animals that eat mammals will not be catching a cow any time soon.

Then, of course it depends on the fish - because even within mbuna they can have slightly different diets.

Fish from the Labeotropheus famillies are complete herbivores. They should be feed a diet of spirulina flakes, and the best way to keep them is with strong lighting and healthy algae growth, giving them a snack whenever they wish.

Most mbuna, including those from the pseudotropheus, maylandia, and melanochromis families, are omnivorous. A diet of prepared cichlid foods, spirulina flakes, and a supplement of krill, plankton, and brineshrimp all work - any invertabrate really. These guys also appreciate nice algae growth on the rocks in the tank.

Labidochromis is the only family of mbuna that does not eat algae. They live exclusively off of small organisms like insects and invertabrates. They are fine with staple cichlid foods as well as all the invertabrates mentioned above, not to mention mosquito larva and similar foods. Although they don't need spirulina, it will do no harm to feed them some if you wish to keep them with other omnivorous mbuna. You may see these guys sifting thorugh algae as well, but they are not eating it, they're actually just hunting for food within it.