Homemade Food for South American Cichlids

[Kittiee Katt]

Thanks, this has told me all I need to know about this community.

Neither myself or Jhay3513 intended to insult you or undermine your fishkeeping experience, and I deeply apologize if it came across that way.

MFK being a public forum has people of all ages and experience levels, we are all here to learn.

Please try to remember that when someone posts minimal information it is "safer" (I'm not sure if that's the right word but I'll go with it) for the community to assume that they have minimal experience, until told/shown otherwise.

Hypothetically, if you were a beginner who intended to feed homemade food exclusively - you've since clarified that is not your intention - but hypothetically if you were feeding exclusively homemade, and people assumed you weren't, that could have much more serious implications than assuming that you were when indeed you weren't.

Does that make sense?

Please don't judge the entire community based off of two people, there are a lot of knowledgeable people here who are always happy to help where they can.

Again I apologize if I insulted you in any way, that was never my intention.

 

[RD.]

For 5" geos, my only advice would be to feed small sinking pellets, which by the sounds of things you already have covered. I'm not exactly sure what you are attempting to accomplish with a DIY food, but if they were my fish I would not feed them gel food. Like most fish in the geo clan yours are sand sifters, and eating gel (that mostly consists of water, a non-nutrient) food certainly won't be natural, or boost the fishes nutrient uptake beyond a quality pellet. I suppose if you want to feed them something natural, or novel to break up their pellet routine, you could try one of the various freeze dried products on the market. Good luck, they are beautiful fish.

 

[Lilyann]

For 5" geos, my only advice would be to feed small sinking pellets, which by the sounds of things you already have covered. I'm not exactly sure what you are attempting to accomplish with a DIY food, but if they were my fish I would not feed them gel food. Like most fish in the geo clan yours are sand sifters, and eating gel (that mostly consists of water, a non-nutrient) food certainly won't be natural, or boost the fishes nutrient uptake beyond a quality pellet. I suppose if you want to feed them something natural, or novel to break up their pellet routine, you could try one of the various freeze dried products on the market. Good luck, they are beautiful fish.

Thank you for your reply.
After doing some research on the feeding methods of geophagus, I reluctantly purchased some sinking pelleted food: NLS Cichlid Pellets, Thera-A , and AlgaeMax. I intended to mix them together and feed them daily.
I say reluctantly because I stopped using pelleted foods years ago as I had had various problems with feeding them to my discus: primarily bloating and temporary swim-bladder issues. And no, I dont overfeed.
I have since fed a mixed diet of high-quality flake, frozen and freeze-dried foods to all my fish.
My intentions are not to feed a food that is more "natural or novel," but a varied diet similar to the mixture or proportions I feed my other fish: a mix of dried, frozen, and freeze-dried.
I was looking for a recipe ( so that It would be nutritively balanced and not merely an estimation on my part) that's protein was shrimp.
I had also purchased organic spirulina powder, Noori, Agar Agar, and astaxanthin powder, but didn't want to guess the amounts that would be best for the recipe.
These were my intentions. But, I am paying a lot for these fish so I want them to be the healthiest they can be and will feed the diet that is best for them.

 

[RD.]

I have been feeding NLS for the past 15+ years, over the years that has included feeding to some of the most bloat prone fish on the planet - and never once experienced any dietary issues. Quite the opposite. If your intentions are to feed what you do your other fish, simply replace the flakes with the NLS pellets and carry on. Problem solved.

 

[RD.]

BTW - "recipes" that you find here, and elsewhere on the interweb will generally be created by someone lacking in the science necessary to properly formulate a nutritionally balanced diet. Most don't even understand the drawbacks to using terrestrial based plant matter, such as fresh/frozen peas, in those homemade diets.

 

[Lilyann]

What are your thoughts on this recipe from cichlid-forum.com?
It does, however, contain peas and I would imagine that would be ( as a terrestrial plant) hard to digest for cichlids.
It specifies that it is: "European Shrimp Mix."
"This recipe is recommended by many European breeders and hobbyists, and even appears in Ad Konings' book Enjoying Cichlids."

http://www.cichlid-forum.com/articles/food_recipes.php

 

[Lilyann]

I have been feeding NLS for the past 15+ years, over the years that has included feeding to some of the most bloat prone fish on the planet - and never once experienced any dietary issues. Quite the opposite. If your intentions are to feed what you do your other fish, simply replace the flakes with the NLS pellets and carry on. Problem solved.

At the time, when I had issues with pellets, it was a Hikari product-- I think Bio-gold.

 

[RD.]

Funny, I assumed it would have been Tetra Color Bits, which seems to be a fave among discus folks, yet IMHO is a crap food full of low cost low quality fillers. Bio gold I wouldn't think would be an issue, but I have never fed it. Was it the formula supposedly designed for discus? If so I'm surprised that formula would cause gastrointestinal, or swim bladder issues. Seems odd, but I have never experimented with that particular formula. It may have been the higher level of crude fat that was the issue? (12+%)

I used to be a mod on cichlid forum many years ago in the Health/Nutrition folder, I know the author of that article, and own a number of Ad's books, and IMO that diet does not add any nutritional benefit to a diet of TherA mixed with AlgaeMax, in fact, I would say that it falls far short. BTW - years ago in one of Ad's books he stated something along the lines of; cichlids that are only fed commercial pellets will soon lose their color when kept in captivity. That was around the same time the Euro mix was a hot topic. Kind of funny stuff looking back, and just goes to show how little many people really understood about fish nutrition years ago. Unfortunately much of that misinformation from yesteryear still lingers today.

 

[RD.]

BTW - a local breeder of discus (RIP Don) fed NLS 1mm pellets to his discus for years, almost exclusively, but he did admit to feeding frozen bloodworms once or twice a week. His fish room was approx. 3,000 gallons of discus tanks, full of the best of the best, from Stendker, to Jeff Yang, and everything in between. He paid a small fortune to import all of his fish (we are in Canada), and had been breeding discus off & on for 30+ years, until his untimely death a few yrs ago.

NO BEEFHEART, NLS pellets almost exclusively. Yet his fish were large, colorful, in great overall condition, and spawned on a regular basis. I don't think Al et al on Simply Discus believed me. lol

 

[RD.]