LiveFood for Cichlids??

Hi,

I have a malaw tank with
1 Red Zebra Cichlid
3 Yellow Labs
8 Common Zebra's ( I think thats their name )

Just wondering if their is a live food you can feed them, i imagine it would be better for them or is this just mad ignorance??
I also have another small 40 litre tank that isn't being used, i was thinking i could breed a live food for them??

Any help on this matter would be great
Thanks

Malawis, especially the mbunas generally dont do well on protein in their diets. It is thought to give them the condition "Malawi Bloat" which is fatal.

Jay

HI Shane

Adult Cichlids fish that are not carnivore can handle a fair amount of protein in there diet while growing just has to be the right protein. Most bloat will be caused by the wrong type of protein !!!!! there are marine origin protein which is in 90% of foods and then there are vegetable proteins that will be listed on the expensive feeds. Just had a look at tetra prima and they have listed now that Fish & derivatives followed by vegetable protein clever marketing but the main ingredients (Fish & derivatives)are not stated marine or fresh water !!!!

Young fish will be fine and grow much faster on a live feed like algae enriched brine shrimp but it is important to phase out when fish are around 6 months old (Depending on growth rates).

Blood worms can be a bit tricky for little fish to break down there hard exoskeletons.

Daphina on the other hand are a great source due to the hunt that fish have to do to catch pray. As well if they are enriched i bet your growth rates will be through the roof.

I have only listed the main ones that i breed with. I found all the micro worms range too small to feed to African Cichlids


James.

i agree, micro worms aren't worth it, to be honest shane live foods are great but a good alround pellet food would be better as a staple diet and then once in a while hatch some daphnia or brine shrip to mix it up a bit. also there are some reasonable frozen foods available too

The Mbuna……..or “Greedy Hard-Substrate Grazers” could be a better name to help describe their eating habits.

The clues in the jaw and teeth (shape and angle) help give an idea of what they eat. (that is a fascination for Malawi cichlid lovers)

Mbuna are greedy fish, but also being grazers, should be fed little and often with ‘non-substrate’ bound food.

Those teeth tell you that they clearly must have to work hard to get their dinner = scarping the aufwach off rocks; but if then food is supplied in a very freely available form (eg the stuff you’d through into the tank) then they are likely to simply gobble it up too easily and over-feed.

Over-feeding is a problem with Mbuna (irrespective of the food).

Over-feeding with dry food may also be asking for trouble as that is general a high-quality food source that Mbuna are not designed to take (but eat it they will).

The natural diet is epilithic algae (and I use ‘algae’ quite loosely there). In that will be a high content of blue-green “algae”, algae, diatoms and small crustaceans and some worms.
So, eating small crustaceans should not be too much of a problem so long as it is not overdone. OR, and rather, the balance should be biased towards a high content of algal based vegetable matter. (it is not always a matter of what is eaten, but the balance of what is eaten that is important…..same goes for us humans)

Mammal or avian meat should be avoided….I’m not really convinced that it is to do with the proteins, but maybe the fat content that is more important.
Fatty degeneration is always a potential problem with fish. Mbuna are certainly no exception.

Intestine length also help predict the diet…..herbivores tend to have a longer intestine than carnivores. Feeding very difficult-to-digest meat to a herbivore will cause problems in that long intestine.
Interestingly, many Rift Valley Cichlids have seemed to show an ability to change the intestine length depending upon food quality.

I would avoid micro-worms as anything that resembles a staple diet…..but a few may not do any harm. Is it worth raising micro-worms if they are used very sparingly? I wouldn’t bother with that smell.

Live food……small crustaceans may be a great treat (eg daphnia). So always worth a try, but be careful with the source (in case of bringing in parasites).

On the other hand, if I may so bold to make a suggestion, maybe your spare tank would best serve as a good quarantine tank for future acquisitions…..you’d only need a plastic container for raising daphnia.

Ian

although the above is accurate for the herbivourous mbuna, there are several commonly kept mbuna which are omnivore or carnivore. the labidochromis careleus, chisimulu, textilus, joanjohnsonae, melanochromis northern blue, pseud. crabro and most of the large petrotilapias are all omnivore/carnivore and require a different diet than the herbivores. if careleus are fed too much green diet they become blotchy and lose colour.
new life spectrum food seems to be a suitable staple diet for the various malawi cichlids. although it would probably be best to know and provide the correct type of food for the individual species.

derek wrote:

although the above is accurate for the herbivourous mbuna, there are several commonly kept mbuna which are omnivore or carnivore. the labidochromis careleus, chisimulu, textilus, joanjohnsonae, melanochromis northern blue, pseud. crabro and most of the large petrotilapias are all omnivore/carnivore and require a different diet than the herbivores. if careleus are fed too much green diet they become blotchy and lose colour.
new life spectrum food seems to be a suitable staple diet for the various malawi cichlids. although it would probably be best to know and provide the correct type of food for the individual species.

Yep.
The clues are in the teeth and jaws (in malawi at least). Really there are different levels of 'Mbuna'-isms (and all seem to be lumped as Mbuna whether they are or not)

The rapid adaptation of rift valley cichlids left some bits slightly archaeic (eg throw backs to the original riverine species) as, seemingly, a compromise for developing the massively varied feeding levels.

Lake Tanganyikan cichlids, however, show an even greater variation in trophic levels....and it is there that it is clear to see a 'plasticity' in their intestinal adaptation in response to available food quality. Obviously, some species are pretty strict about diet range, but others are quite flexible.

I suppose that varied diet is the key.

Thinking back to the 70s, many people started keeping these species (quite noevl back then, it was) and many had assumed that beause they were 'cichlids' and had lots of teeth that they could be fed heart, dog-food etc etc as was often fed to many other (=Central American) cichlids......success amongst many of my co-keepers was not great. Fortunately, the message developed that thess fish were different.

The topic of Malawi Bloat is as interesting Discus Hole-in-the-head.