I recently purchased a cichla about 3". He was $15 I hope its a little boy, but i have no idea and i need help sexing. And, I need help feeding him, when i bought him, he was put in a feeder tank alone so he had been gorging on feeders. His gut wasn't bloated or anything though. I haven't gotten him to eat anything yet but hes given feeders some sinister looks. I've offered him some pellets both floating and sinking but he didn't even acknowledge them. How can i get him on pellets? And how can i sex him, i can post some pics. I'd also like help w/ species ID.
Help W/ my baby Cichla
- Thread starter Kaianuanu
- Start date
I feed my cichlas frozen blood worms and they love it. I also feed them pellets (crushed). I first feed them pellets and after I feed them blood worms. It was a challenge to get them to eat the pellets you have to trick them, there's a sticky thread you can read.. everyone has their own technique to feed. Your cichla looks like mine. It is either a mono or ocell, it is still to young to tell.
But I would definitely try to feed it frozen blood worms.
But I would definitely try to feed it frozen blood worms.
Yours might be tricky cause you have only one. I have 10 and when they were younger, what i found out is to make them compete for food. I would used the back of a spoon to crush pellets (floating sticks, bio gold etc). I would then sprinkle some of the crushed pellets in the tank. Once i started sprinkling the food little at a time rather than putting all in at once, it worked like a charm. In the mean time, by cichlas also loved FD blood worms and FD shrimp (omega brand). Its a trial and error fiinding out what they will eat. Good luck!
With my little ones I fattened them up with blood worms until they attack aggresivly at it then - threw in some slighty larger comets and only fed them food sticks. They eventualy copy the pigging out comets and start trying to eat all the sticks before the comets do. Eventualy they eat the comets and then I switch to pellets witch have the smell of sticks witch they recognize. Just my experience I've had.
It looks like Mono and as for sexing it will take some time for it to grow out more. I say all the answers above are great advice for converting them over to pellets.
I spoke with Red1 years ago about his breeding mono's, he was one of the first ever to breed pbass in a 125. He said after breeding so many times, he finally could tell the difference in male and females just by how far the mouth extends out from the eyes, male would be more pointed and extend father out, females more short and rounded. Looking at your's in his theory, you have a male.