Feeding!

[davidblackson]

12 x electric yellows
6x cobalt blues ( maylandia callainos )
2x kadanga red ( copadichromis " i think? )
6x kingsizei
3x elongatus mpanga
2x sciaenochromis ahli
9x acei ( blueish body with yellow fins with a white crest running along the top fin .. if anyone could give me a scientific name that would be great, they were just sold to me as "acei" ???

are there any special feeding requirements or anything anyone has to say,. they seem very hungry all the time and i dont want them to get bloat..

thanks alot

 

[davidblackson]

currently feeding on new life spectrum community fish formula 34% protein.. will this cause bloat

 

[Rick A]

Decent quality flake food, some spirulina cichlid pellets - alternate each day to keep their interest up, and a bit of cucumber every couple of days or so.

Feed them what they can eat in five minutes or so once a day. They SHOULD be hungry / keen at feeding times, if they are only 'so-so' about eating when you feed them then you are overfeeding them. Its not just the fish you need to think about, all that uneaten food will up your bioload, and Malawis are pretty fussy; once the food has been in there for more than a few minutes they usually won't touch it...

And NO BLOOD WORM! THAT will give them bloat... Most Malawis are herbivores and consequently have longer stomachs / digestive tracts than carnivores, which is a sure fire way to give them bloat... The equation works like this: Malawi bloat = almost certain death

Hope this helps

 

[kj23502]

It depends if its a veggie protein or meaty protein.

Here's what I feed mine.

The yellow one w/the purple is a meaty protein pellet. I feed that b/c I have a carnivore and 2 omnivores. I feed that a couple times a week w/a mixture of the other stuff a few times to. I usually let them fast 1 day. The green bag should be a white bag. (I found out later that the green is for SA cichlids) The white one looks a similar packaging style except it's white.

When I go to cichlid forum and search by Malawi, then mbuna, and then either herbivore, carnivore, omnivore I get:
about 65 omnivores
128 herbivores
30 carnivore

Keep in mind it counts by species and not genus and some genus have fish in multiple categories...ex. some cynotilapia afra are carnivores and some are omnivores so the genus is split into 2 categories instead of 1.

If the mystery fish is a regualr Acei it's a pseudotropheus Acei. Try searching for pics of that fish and see if they look similar.

Back to food:
It's good to have mbuna that are always a little hungary. Then they will spend some of their time picking/grazing algae and that cuts down on aggression time. Look up your fish and find out what mix of fish you have(herbivore, omnivore, carnivore) and that will help determine the dietary needs.

 

[Rick A]

KJ,

considering your "knowledge acquisition rate" I'd definately say that you've got too much time on your hands!
I hope the kids are doing as well as the fish

Good bit of research all the same, just wanted to make sure that David didn't get into feeding Malawis blood worm.

One other thing that I discovered, that is worth remembering, if you think that the fish might be a bit 'bunged-up' then you can quite safely add one or two tablespoons of Epsom Salts (it's actually Magnesium Sulphate) to ease digestive problems.

 

[kj23502]

KJ,

considering your "knowledge acquisition rate" I'd definately say that you've got too much time on your hands!
I hope the kids are doing as well as the fish

lol...reading about fish is what I do in my spare time. Reading about africans and about saltwater, atm. Right now the kids are napping so I'm on. Then I'm on a little after I pick up 1 from school. They can play really well together. Then I'm on for a bit after they go to bed (bed time about 8pm) and then of course my "other" spare time is spent on housework

I hate house work but somehow I manage to get it done!! I've been reading about cichlids for quite some time now...since late last year I guess it's about 1 year now.

Speaking of the kids, I'm acutally quite impressed w/my 1st grader. I was working on math problems with in the waiting room at dr yesterday. I thought I'd ask him a harder question than 2+5 or whatever. I asked him "whats 2 more than 2 minus 1" and he thought for a few seconds and said 3. It's only his second year (never had preschool) into any type of school and it's only been in session about 8 weeks. Pretty damn good if you ask me!! A multi-step math problem in his head w/out using fingers to count it out..Mama is proud

btw, we do have a chemist who works for a drug company, an engineer, owner of a decently large business (spans about 3/4 of the U.S.) and a retired president of a company in our family history...maybe he'll take after them. Well, I guess any parent can dream

Then I guess I shoulda been a marine biologist, like I wanted to

 

[Rick A]

KJ,

don't want to 'hijack' this man's post, but good to hear that the kids are doing so well - mine's 3 and she's an absolute diamond, counts to twenty speaks both English and Spanish and takes up most of my spare time

David,

if you do suspect any bloat problmes in the future, put up a post immediatley and act on it quickly. They can go down hill with this very rapidly.. Good luck anyway