Best frozen foods for my SA cichlids

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M

Mythic Figment

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Jul 27, 2012
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Florida
So I am looking to have just 4-5 frozen foods available for feeding my various stock of SA fish (some I already have and some I will be getting in the near future). Below is my stock.

* = already have

125g:
2 severums (one red 2.5" and one 4" turquoise) *
8 geo red head tapajos (1.5-2"/ I hope to get a pair that will be moved to their own 55 once they begin breeding)
23 angelfish (1" grow outs that will be narrowed down to 4-6) *
2 bumblebee catfish (2.5") *
1 spotted highfin pleco (3") *

55g:
5 German blue rams (3") *
4 keyholes (one 3" and three 1.5-2") *
10 neon tetras (1") *
1 Siamese algae eater (3") *

They are all currently on the same foods. Their morning meal is protein rich flakes. Dinners are crushed sinking and cichlid pellets (they are too big to fit in their mouths whole) every night except Wednesdays and Saturdays with half an algae wafer for the pleco tank every other night. Wednesdays and Saturdays are frozen food nights with food alternating between brine shrimp and bloodworms.

I am looking to make dinners just frozen meals as their is more variety then pellets and they are easier to feed than crushing up pellets after a long day of work. I am thinking spirulina brine shrimp, daphnia, bloodworms and krill. Would this be a good list that would work with all my fish?

I want my mornings to go down to either just flakes or just crushed pellets. I am leaning towards the pellets as I use the Hikari brand and trust them more than the Tetra brand flakes. Thoughts?


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You could use all off those. Try glass worms tilapia and market shrimp too. A variety is best so the more foods you offer is better. Your fish might not eat all the things listed


I would also switch to pellets. Try to find the smallest made if needed but I would give the bigger fish a staple of pellets and frozen

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doomiedee said:
You could use all off those. Try glass worms tilapia and market shrimp too. A variety is best so the more foods you offer is better. Your fish might not eat all the things listed


I would also switch to pellets. Try to find the smallest made if needed but I would give the bigger fish a staple of pellets and frozen

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Click to expand...

The pellets I have are the smallest I can find locally. I may have to order some online. Crushing them doesn't take a long time, but is still a pain in the butt when all you want to do is rest after a 8-10 hour work day. LOL

The local frozen freshwater food I can find is daphnia, spirulina, spirulina brine shrimp, brine shrimp, bloodworms, krill and mixes of the different kinds. They sell them in "party packs", which I find quite amusing. I want to do the daphnia and spirulina brine shrimp because I don't think my sevs get enough greens in their diet. One is new and I haven't tried anything green with him yet, but my turquoise refuses greens. I have had a leaf of lettuce, cucumber, zucchini and peas in there and she won't touch any of them. Many of the other fish enjoy them, but she won't take. I am hoping the spirulina brine shrimp will at least give her a good green option that she won't know about. :)


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If she not taking greens she probably won't eat those. Easy trick to ween en on new food is soak the pellets in the daphnia and spirulina brine shrimp then feed the pellets only then day by day introduce more Daphnia and spirulina brine shrimp You could also try a green pellet like hikari cichlid staple.

I would still try the other foods that are available to you. You can get tilapia and shrimp from any supermarket. As long as its not prepped and frozen.


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A good, staple pellet is all you need. If you want to feed occasional frozen snacks you can try bloodworms or Piscine Energetics brand mysis shrimp. Rinse them in a net to get some of the oil off of them before feeding. Frozen brine really don't do much more larger cichlids, nutrition-wise. You can also start a redworm culture and feed them live worms.

For small cichlids I use the NLS Grow formula, .5mm. They're basically tiny crumbles. I feed these to 1/2" fry up to 2" dwarf cichlids. For severums and other medium sized SAs I use the Hikari Gold sinking "mini" pellets. I think they're 2mm. I buy the 2 pound bag. I also have NLS Thera-A pellets that are larger but my cichlids chew them up and spit them out. They're very messy. They don't seem to enjoy the Thera-A as much as they like the Hikari but they'll eat both.

As for greens, my severums have never been fans of zucchini or peas. They love Romaine lettuce. Break off whole Romaine leaves, rinse them, and then stick them in the tank upside down (with the hard stem part facing up). Close the hard stem in the lid so that the green part is hanging in the water. Usually when you come back later it'll just be a white stalk with all the leaf stripped off. I do this for severums and Uaru. Your severums may be a bit too small yet to do that. My juvies didn't seem to pay it any mind but my adult severums all eat it that way.

Most severums will also eat the algae wafers intended for plecos.
 
ryansmith83 said:
A good, staple pellet is all you need. If you want to feed occasional frozen snacks you can try bloodworms or Piscine Energetics brand mysis shrimp. Rinse them in a net to get some of the oil off of them before feeding. Frozen brine really don't do much more larger cichlids, nutrition-wise. You can also start a redworm culture and feed them live worms.

For small cichlids I use the NLS Grow formula, .5mm. They're basically tiny crumbles. I feed these to 1/2" fry up to 2" dwarf cichlids. For severums and other medium sized SAs I use the Hikari Gold sinking "mini" pellets. I think they're 2mm. I buy the 2 pound bag. I also have NLS Thera-A pellets that are larger but my cichlids chew them up and spit them out. They're very messy. They don't seem to enjoy the Thera-A as much as they like the Hikari but they'll eat both.

As for greens, my severums have never been fans of zucchini or peas. They love Romaine lettuce. Break off whole Romaine leaves, rinse them, and then stick them in the tank upside down (with the hard stem part facing up). Close the hard stem in the lid so that the green part is hanging in the water. Usually when you come back later it'll just be a white stalk with all the leaf stripped off. I do this for severums and Uaru. Your severums may be a bit too small yet to do that. My juvies didn't seem to pay it any mind but my adult severums all eat it that way.

Most severums will also eat the algae wafers intended for plecos.
Click to expand...

Sweet. I think I will give those pellets a try and feed bloodworms and brine shrimp on occasion. :) Thanks Ryan.


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