What's is the best food for 2 inch Flowerhorns?
- Thread starter Alex562
- Start date
I dont have any experience with that food in particular but I have tried other brands like Grand Sumo and Chingmix and let me tell you the flowerhorn specific marketed pellets are not that good at least to me.
The best food I have ever came across is made by Ocean Nutrition, Forumula 1 & 2. I like to mix them at a 50/50 ratio. They come in small pellets, medium pellets and flakes. The food is sooo fresh that it is actually bagged up inside the container it comes in.
I raise fry on Golden Pearls from http://www.brineshrimpdirect.com/ 300-500 microns and up till they are large enough to handle the small pellets from ocean nutrition. I feed flake till the fish can eat the small pellets then I discontinue.
I found with this food that all color is naturally brought out, not just the red. Due to the high amounts amino acids and other proteins the fish get fuller and thicker bodies and never looked starved, even after missing a feeding. The affects the food have on koks is amazing! Although it is purely dependent on the fish, but fish that started with a little cliff end head up with nice size koks after about a month or 2 on Ocean Nutrition.
The only down side I noticed with this food is that it can mess up the tank and drive down the pH if overfed. This is definitely not the type of food you leave sitting on the bottom.
Hope this helps
The best food I have ever came across is made by Ocean Nutrition, Forumula 1 & 2. I like to mix them at a 50/50 ratio. They come in small pellets, medium pellets and flakes. The food is sooo fresh that it is actually bagged up inside the container it comes in.
I raise fry on Golden Pearls from http://www.brineshrimpdirect.com/ 300-500 microns and up till they are large enough to handle the small pellets from ocean nutrition. I feed flake till the fish can eat the small pellets then I discontinue.
I found with this food that all color is naturally brought out, not just the red. Due to the high amounts amino acids and other proteins the fish get fuller and thicker bodies and never looked starved, even after missing a feeding. The affects the food have on koks is amazing! Although it is purely dependent on the fish, but fish that started with a little cliff end head up with nice size koks after about a month or 2 on Ocean Nutrition.
The only down side I noticed with this food is that it can mess up the tank and drive down the pH if overfed. This is definitely not the type of food you leave sitting on the bottom.
Hope this helps
Thank you so much. I will look into those suggestions. I have not heard of that food before.
been using this for my little ones.
http://www.petsmart.com/fish/food/a...catid-300008?_t=pfm=category&pfmvalue=faceted
http://www.petsmart.com/fish/food/a...catid-300008?_t=pfm=category&pfmvalue=faceted
For enhancing color best is shrimp diet and krill. Depends if your Flowerhorn has red it will pop.
New spectrum is good I use hikari gold sinking pellets.
New spectrum is good I use hikari gold sinking pellets.
Just be careful with a shrimp/krill diet. Krill and other shrimp seem to be the go to answer for color enhancing questions but I believe krill's use is actually more harmful than beneficial in this instance, at least IMO.
Krill contain astaxanthin, a keto-carotenoid, which is what causes fish to turn red. Salmon eat krill and other shrimp high in astaxanthin and in turn the salmon develop red meat. However, salmon are adapted to eating shrimp and krill all of the time. Flowerhorn and other cichlids rarely eat shrimp, especially shrimp high in astaxanthin. So when we feed our fish krill (a marine shrimp not a cichlid's natural prey) our flowerhorn take in the astaxanthin and becomes more red as the astaxanthin is worked out of the body. It is a temporary effect. Once the astaxanthin is out of the fish, the fish may turn dark and loose its abundance of red, even sometimes its kok.
A cichlid fed mostly on krill and shrimp will eventually develop white poop and may even die if their diet is not corrected. Krill, and other shrimp, should not be used as a staple for color enhancing but as a treat outside of their normal staple food.
Just my 2-cents
Just be careful with a shrimp/krill diet. Krill and other shrimp seem to be the go to answer for color enhancing questions but I believe krill's use is actually more harmful than beneficial in this instance, at least IMO.
Krill contain astaxanthin, a keto-carotenoid, which is what causes fish to turn red. Salmon eat krill and other shrimp high in astaxanthin and in turn the salmon develop red meat. However, salmon are adapted to eating shrimp and krill all of the time. Flowerhorn and other cichlids rarely eat shrimp, especially shrimp high in astaxanthin. So when we feed our fish krill (a marine shrimp not a cichlid's natural prey) our flowerhorn take in the astaxanthin and becomes more red as the astaxanthin is worked out of the body. It is a temporary effect. Once the astaxanthin is out of the fish, the fish may turn dark and loose its abundance of red, even sometimes its kok.
A cichlid fed mostly on krill and shrimp will eventually develop white poop and may even die if their diet is not corrected. Krill, and other shrimp, should not be used as a staple for color enhancing but as a treat outside of their normal staple food.
Just my 2-cents
I feed my flowerhorns once a week brine shrimp or krill. It's not on a daily basis but brings out their reds like crazy.
Flowerhorn are never in the wild so can't really say what they eat. They're tons of pellets higher quality ones that have shrimp meal and krill meal already incorporated in their diet.
I like your point of view though but from experience I never had an issue
I agree with nearly everything you said and experience is the best teacher, however, "Flowerhorn are never in the wild so can't really say what they eat"...really? They are just Trimac cihlids bred with other central american cichlid, none of which have access to krill or other marine shrimp.
Pellets do have shrimp in them but in small amounts. They also have squid, mussels, beefheart, flour, garlic etc, etc in them too. What I was getting at before is that feeding SOLELY or mostly shrimp will have side affects that out weigh the pros of use. It's the astaxanthin levels that I am primarily warning against not the variety or types of food.
Trust me, I got this info from experience too.
So I decided to give this a try since it comes in small pellet size. Ill keep you updated once I receive it since it comes from Thailand it will take a couple weeks...
http://www.ebay.com/itm/CHEAPEST-OK...8ba6bc8&pid=100005&rk=2&rkt=6&sd=321658987234
http://www.ebay.com/itm/CHEAPEST-OK...8ba6bc8&pid=100005&rk=2&rkt=6&sd=321658987234
Yes I do understand exactly what your saying but every single Flowerhorn has genes from Trimac to many other cichlids. I see fish like humans too as their diet. You need a variety of foods and once in a while a steak dinner but in this example a shrimp/krill dinner.
Too much steak is bad for you so is shrimp and krill.
I get your point and I agree with you but all I'm trying to tell the OP is the best enhancer would be shrimp and krill. Not on a daily basis maybe once a week.
A lot of color to pearls is genetics so don't think a dull fish will become a grade A specimen. A nice looking fish that has potential may benefit from a well diet