I have been doing something that may work for you, but it is much more involved initially and you need a bigger tank to raise the fry. I adapted something that I learned through aquaculture and used it for a small batch of fry (about 200). I took a 50 gallon tank and placed it in a window. Filled with water change water and an airstone and a few flourescent lights on 24/7. Get a cup of water from a local pond or a starter culture of green water and add it to the water. If your water change water is high in nitrates, you may not have to fertilize it, if not add some fertilizer. F2 is the name of the solution used most often, but I use miracle grow in a pinch. In a week or two with any luck your water should look like pea soup. It should remain like this for a while, siphon off the dead algae that settles on the bottom and top off with water change water or tap water that has been fertilized.
You will have to have a few daphnia cultures, either daphnia magna or moina running as well. You can feed them the green water or yeast, but be careful not to let any get into the greenwater tank. Next time you get fry transfer them into the greenwater tank with slow acclimation and add a couple of hundred adult daphnia. As long as you don't over fertilize there should be low nitrates and no ammonia or nitrite to speak of. If you time it out right then you haven't seen growth rates like this ever. This is how ornamental fish farmers raise their fish, just in ponds instead of tanks. I recently tried this with a batch of fry from het blue gene jack dempseys and left for 10 days When I came back they had went from new fry to 1/4 inch and the water was clear. Since now I have added a mature sponge filter and started feeding prepared foods as well as live blackworms, which I culture as well but that is a whole other post.
This should work with cichla as well, since they are also a sight predator. Once you move them over to blackworms and then on to prepared foods or livebearer fry, you should get them to get them to the size you need quickly.
If you try it and it works as well for you as it did for me, and excellent thank you is a bag of fry, I promise they will be well taken care of.
