Food to get baby cichla growing fast?

[chuckrum]

got some 1.5 inchers, been feeding them small NLS pellets. i was feeding FD krill before bu i heard they cause a negative feeding response so i stopped. Should i maybe feed mysis shrimp or blood worms?

when i had my 1.5" cichla about 6 months back, i had them on feeder guppies, and they grew ALOT faster, but its not worth the money or the risk.

 

[Chizzle]

get them on some sort of pellet, mine are still only eating bloodworms and growing excruciatingly slow.

 

[Venom SS]

Mix softened small pellets in with thawed frozen bloodworms. Squirt them into the tank with a medium sized eyedropper, so it gives the worms movement. Over time you can slowly reduce the bloodworms when you see them start to take the pellets. Once they are on pellets, never look back. If they will eat raw shrimp and things like that it is a bonus, but I have found that once they start the bloodworm / pellet reatment, they dont want much of anything else untill they are much bigger. I have 3 Bahia's and a Peru Mono that are about 5-6" and they dont want anything but pellets now. Dont feed cheap nasty pellets either, only high quality.

 

[Houdini89]

As long as there not eating live, its a plus........

 

[Venom SS]

In all honesty there is nothing better for fattening up your cichla quickly than high quality live food. Problem is, they wont want anything else when they are bigger and that will lead you into too many problems to list as the fish mature. But, if you had a never ending source of young disease free cichlids to feed them, your fish would be fat and colorful. But since most people dont have access to thousands of super healthy feeders, we go for pellets and frozen .

 

[chuckrum]

yea i knew they grew faster on feeders. i eventually converted mine to arrow sticks when they got 6". i first trained them to eat dead goldies, until they snapped at anything that hit the water. then put pelets between fish, but that didnt work. then AHA! chicken hot dogs! they went for bits of chicken hot dogs, and then after a day of chicken hot dogs, they went for pellets right away.

 

[chuckrum]

any pellets you recommend? i was thinking of crushing up massivore or aro sticks. right now theyre on new life spectrum pellets

 

[Venom SS]

NLS are good, as well as just about any Hikari carnivorous. I use Hikari sinking carnivore, and Massivore. If they will take them off of the surface, Hikari Food Sticks are another good option.