I wanted to know what you recommend to feed to young fish. I have a 2inch baby GT, a 2inch baby tiger oscar and a 2 inch baby jag in my 125. That I will be upgrading to a 220 in just under a year. Right now I have been feeding them hikari frozen bloodworms and brine shrimp. Any suggestions would be appreciated.
Best food for young fish
- Thread starter Kyel
- Start date
I feed mine Hikari Cichlid Gold. They make sinking and floating pellets. I like the sinking ones because not all of my fish come to the top (like my Geos) and also the floating ones tend to get sucked into my wet/dry overflows. I use the medium and large pellets depending on the size of the fish, but yours may be still a bit on the small side to take the medium pellets. Get the sinking type and let them soften in water a bit, then they should be able to tear them apart and eat them.
People may disagree with me, but I just don't feel like there's enough nutritional value in brine shrimp to make it a staple for large-growing cichlids like yours. They work great when raising tiny fry, but once they are old enough to accept larger dried foods, I'd switch to that instead. Frozen bloodworms are great a couple times a week or for treats, but you really want a good quality pellet food to round out their diet and provide them with the proper nutrition.
When they get bigger, you can also give occasional live treats like earthworms/red wigglers. My cichlids also love frozen mysis shrimp. I try to only feed live or frozen on occasion though (except with my discus, but that's another story). It's mostly pellets for me.
People may disagree with me, but I just don't feel like there's enough nutritional value in brine shrimp to make it a staple for large-growing cichlids like yours. They work great when raising tiny fry, but once they are old enough to accept larger dried foods, I'd switch to that instead. Frozen bloodworms are great a couple times a week or for treats, but you really want a good quality pellet food to round out their diet and provide them with the proper nutrition.
When they get bigger, you can also give occasional live treats like earthworms/red wigglers. My cichlids also love frozen mysis shrimp. I try to only feed live or frozen on occasion though (except with my discus, but that's another story). It's mostly pellets for me.
At 2" your options are almost limitless. Shoot for variety and feed anything they can get into their mouths. For the GT, stick with mostly vegetable-based foods as this has been reported to prevent the bloating, blockages and death that usually happen with this species. Otherwise, a range of sinking foods and the live foods they are getting now sounds like a fine diet, though I'd start rearing daphnia instead of brine shrimp.
Any of the smaller pellets will do the job, I like to use NLS There +A on the young GTs as a staple with veggies like crushed skinned peas.
Kyel;4751497; said:
Also having a staple diet of a product such as pellets is not only healthy for the fish, but is healthy for the wallet..........I use HIKARI color enhancing pellets as an everyday feed.........Twice, sometimes three times a day................HIKARI pellets has been on my shelf for almost twenty years............And i have planned to use it for another twenty years, HIKARI..................
Kyel;4751995; said:
Yeah feeding the fish everyday works out, it is actually what you want to do................Once in the morning and once in the night..........Drop in a different treat every other day....A treat can be some krill, small crickets, small mealworms................Just remember to stick to weekly water changes.............