Your cichlid are too slow and not big enough to scare off the Columbia tetra in competition for food. You may try some larger pellets that the cichlid can swallow but too big for the tetra. Sinking pellets will help too because your cichlid are better bottom feeder. In time, your cichlid will grow big and elbow out the tetra.
Fat Tetra
- Thread starter Ash02
- Start date
I feed 3 sizes of pellets, from .5mm to 2mm. The tetras have no problem grabbing a 2 mm pellet and nibbling it down to size. I've watched my largest few tetras grab as many as five 1mm pellets in their mouths at once. They are amazing fish. I think the issue really started when I began adding a good bit of flake in order to get my red spotted severum to eat. He would get some, but the tetras would get 90% of it. I've stopped adding flake. The severum is going to have to learn to eat pellets.
If the cichlid are of the same size as the Columbia, the fast Columbia will have the competitive advantage to grab the food. A nick name for Columbia is mini piranha. I keep bleeding heart, diamond and Congo tetra with 4 to 10 inch cichlid, and the tetra don’t have the advantage any more and have to pick up feeding debris from the cichlid. You should feed your fish with no smaller than 2mm pellets as cichlid have bigger mouth to swallow whole while and the tetra need to struggle to break apart the pellets. I found that Hikari mini size pellets, about 2.5 mm, are firmer and harder to nip apart until fully soaked.
