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tbradsh1 tbradsh1
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  • Posted on: 1/4/2013 12:35
Best food for young (small) Cichlids #1
On Saturday I stocked my 75 gallon tank with 20 small (1 inch) African Cichlids. They are doing great but would like to know the best way to feed them. I have 1mm pellet Cichlid food but that seems to be too large for them to eat easily. I am breaking them up a little but that even seems difficult. They are eating well and seem to be happy and healthy but just want to be sure I'm feeding these little guys right.

Thanks!
nathangoudie nathangoudie
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  • Posted on: 1/4/2013 13:08
Re: Best food for young (small) Cichlids #2
Hi!
There's a variety of cichlid in africa. Can you be more specific which cichlid are you keeping? (which lake are they from, and even better if you give us which specie are they)
tbradsh1 tbradsh1
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  • Posted on: 1/4/2013 13:28
Re: Best food for young (small) Cichlids #3
All the Cichlids are from Lake Malawi....at least that's what the fish store told me. They were an "assortment" of Cichlids and I'm new at Cichlids so don't know the names yet. I wanted to start with a group of young Cichlids so the could "grow up" together which might help on the aggression. Sorry I can't give much more detail than that right now.
Fishlady Fishlady
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  • Posted on: 1/4/2013 13:34
Re: Best food for young (small) Cichlids #4
You need to work out what type of Malawi cichlids you've bought as dietary requirements vary. Malawi Mbuna are herbivores, but Haps are meat eaters. Haps need meaty foods for proper growth, but if Mbuna get more than a little high protein food it can make them very ill as their digestive system can't cope with it. If you aren't sure what you have, post some photos and we'll try to identify them for you.

Once we know what you have we can recommend some foods for them
tbradsh1 tbradsh1
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  • Posted on: 1/4/2013 16:11
Re: Best food for young (small) Cichlids #5
Sorry for all the pictures....there are 20 and they are hard to get pictures of.

Thanks for all your help!
Fishlady Fishlady
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  • Posted on: 1/4/2013 16:22
Re: Best food for young (small) Cichlids #6
Hmm, pics haven't appeared. Did you try attaching them to the post? If so, that won't work as the forum software only allows 1 per post done that way. Upload them to the gallery instead and I'll take a look
tbradsh1 tbradsh1
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  • Posted on: 1/4/2013 16:41
Re: Best food for young (small) Cichlids #7
I tried uploading to the Gallery but it will only upload one. I have 7 I wanted to upload....I will keep looking and find out how to get 7 uploaded.

Thanks!
Fishlady Fishlady
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  • Posted on: 1/4/2013 16:44
Re: Best food for young (small) Cichlids #8
You have to upload them one at a time
Fishlady Fishlady
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  • Posted on: 1/4/2013 17:02
Re: Best food for young (small) Cichlids #9
The ones in the pic you've already added look like they're all Mbuna. There are some similarities between certain Mbuna species' so can't yet identify for certain, but you definitely have a Melanochromis auratus, which is the brown/cream/gold striped fish at the front. The yellow ones in the background are probably Labidochromis caeruleus, the blue striped ones are more difficult as there are quite a few that look roughly like that so a more detailed pic may help, but are most likely to be Metriaclima zebra or Pseudotropheus demasoni. The other possibility is that some of the blue striped ones are male Pseudotropheus saulosi and some of the yellow ones are females. The solid blue ones could be Pseudotropheus socolofi.

Have a look here for pics and profiles to help you, though as yours are juveniles they may take a while to identify for sure.
nathangoudie nathangoudie
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Re: Best food for young (small) Cichlids #10
This site will definitely hlep you out a lot!
http://www.aquapaws.ie/mbuna.php

Just keep in mind that Pseu.Saulosi is yellow for female and blue with black stripe for for male (the brightest blue color will be dominant male and some other males could even be yellow). Juvenile P.saulosi is also yellow.

Try algae wafers, they'll be soften in water and the fish might be able to eat it. Try blanched vegetable too.

Like Fish Lady mentioned, mbunas are herbivore and avoid meaty food as much as possible (that includes pellets made for carnivore or omnivore fish)