Just curious, what do you guys prefer? Do you like buying them young and raising them to adult hood, or do you prefer to pick them up larger? I know how awesome these guys look large, but to me I want to raise mine to that stage. I want to see them grow into the monster fish they are. How bout you?
What do you prefer? Raising small cichlas, or purchasing large?
- Thread starter itsKRUDD
- Start date
buying em large is a cheap thrill and you dont get the pride that comes with raising a young fish into adulthood!
Plus u had no control of its prior diet water quality etc! Just my opinion but there are real cool adult fish out there that need rehoming!
#1 S. Vettel
i like raising from young. i want the pride of raising a magnificant fish. but im alsp impatient 
but still only buy young.
Sent from my cave
but still only buy young.Sent from my cave
Guess it's where your at really? Like I have raised over 50 cichla from 1" to 2" over the three years and kinda grow tiered of all the different grow out tanks etc that comes along with that. Not only that but the whole feeding / pellet training can be a HUGE B*#^H and pain to go through. I guess for me right now and where I'm at, been there done that and it was great, but I'm kinda done with the little guys for awhile and into the lager ones right now.. Although, I have now begun breeding and have spawning pairs, so again this will be fun and a new adventure but it comes with a lot of work and extra tanks etc.. And I'm sure eventually, I'll tiered of that and just want a killer cichla tank with many different and rarer sp as a show tank.. But my love for cichla will never change and I do think to be a real cichla keeper / owner you need to do it from start to finish and learn as much as you can from them.
Thats actually a pretty interesting take on it, thanks! What size tank do you plan on keeping all the show fish in? Also, as these guys get larger is it okay to simlpy introduce other large peacock bass in together? Do they ever fight amongst themselves? My 2 small guys nip at each other every so often but that could simply be them "playing around". Nothing ever serious
I'll probably always have several large tanks and DIY's. But my show tank will be a 1000gal with only my best cichla sp in it. And IME I have never had a problem dropping in another cichla in with the others and have done it quite a bit. Obviously as long as the others aren't big enough to eat the new guy he'll be fine. All my cichla bicker like teenage boys but never more serious then just that.
I prefer raising my own but when you have large cichla you may just be buying expensive feeders. I have a partition in my tank now while i grow out some pasionis. Thats not always an option for me though since I only have one tank and haven't started making my sump yet
90% of my 12"-20" cichla I have raised from only1". And Everyone of them down to my smallest 3" I currently have are pellet trained. You really shouldn't be feeding your bass feeders as their primary diet, there is so many things worng with that I couldn't even begin... I only feed treated feeders as a treat once in awhile.
Did you use the traditional cut up live, then mix frozen with live, then straight up frozen, mix in pellet method? Also what pellets do you feed them?
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I use a mixture of Hikari Jumbo CarniSticks, Hikari Massivore Delite, Azoo 9 in 1 Arowana Sticks, TetraCichlid Jumbo Sticks, large freeze-dried krill & a turtle mix with dried grass hoppers, mill worms etc. in it.. I mix these all up and is the main food source to all my fish. I also feed raw shrimp, silver sides, shiners, fat heads, blue gill, cry fish, squid, snails, frogs, trout, salmon, herring, smelt, cichlids, krill, and sometimes catfood... three to four times a week on top of their daily pellets.