I was just reading a thread where people were saying all these different veggies their cichlids will eat- ours especially our Oscar won't touch anything but blood worms! We tried cucumber and everyone in the tank ignored it. Even Hikari Cichlid gold pellets- neither our oscar or our Jack Dempsey touched them- the catfish ended up eating them! Our cichlids are stuck on blood worms- how do you get a more varied diet when they won't touch anything else in the tank!? we feed them twice daily (they are young cichlids, the oscar is only about 2-3inches) so maybe this is why they wont try new things?
cichlids will not eat veggies
- Thread starter jeyy88
- Start date
I find a high quality pellet provides everything my fish need nutritionally, but feeding fresh veggies certainly doesn't hurt anything. You can feed a lot of different vegetables.
Hold back feeding for a couple of days and then only offer a quality pellet. This should be their staple over one or two kinds of vegetables to ensure that the fish receive proper nutrition. After they readily eat the pellets, vegetables and other foods can be given as occasional treats. Remember, not all cichlids will accept vegetable matter. Some have more carnivorous appetites. Feeding them a good pellet will make sure that the fish have a proper diet.
You should use a balance of cichlid pellets, along with blood worms and my Oscars used to go crazy for beef heart and the occasional insect.
Good luck. In my year and a half of owning my Oscars they would eat just about anything i placed in the tank but would not dare touch any flakes. And even when they did they spit it out immediately.
We have Hikari cichlid gold pellets and the oscar doesn't even try to eat them, the Jack spits them out. The oscar will eat pinhead crickets- we only tried once and then a guy at one fish store said they could be bad because they can have parasites or whatever, is this true or should we continue to buy crickets if he'll eat them? we havent tried beefheat but there is a guy that sells it in our area for pretty cheap- is this a good food to go with? So far the oscar is eating mainly frozen bloodworms and will occasionally eat just Tetra tropical flakes (they came with one of our tanks and we are just using them up i dont know how healthy they are).
jeyy88;5131143; said:
Try this.. Don't feed for 2 days. Then throw some peeled peas(yes, you must peel the peas for your fish).. Started with 3-4 for a dempsey that's about 4".
Then, don't feed for 2 more days, and then try 3-4 pellets.
Continue until they eat whatever goes in the tank at feeding time.
My dempsey ended up going absolutely psycho for peeled peas.. The rest go nuts for spinach and romaine lettuce.