How to feed all natural diet

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GTcichlid74

Candiru
MFK Member
Dec 30, 2016
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NY
First let me start off by acknowledging that there is nothing wrong with pellets, this is in no way a knock to people who use them as I have aswell.

I am getting a male jaguar cichlid to live solo in my 125 gallon. I want to feed him a strictly natural raw prepared food diet. I’ve never done this before and I would just like some advice. If I’m going to have one fish I might aswell pay special attention to him, that’s just the way I see it. What foods should I feed him and what should be a staple?. All of this assuming I don’t care about long term cost. If someone with experience doing this can chime in it would be greatly appreciated.
 
jags are insectivores as juvi turning more piscivore as they get older, if you want a more natural diet, gut loaded insects, tilapia, worms, shrimp etc socked in some of the vitamin solutions. But Imo a good quality pellet as a staple with the odd treat here and there is a much better diet ensuring they get all the nutrition they need.
 
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As said above, insects gradually turning to small fish would be natural.
But there are at least 2 major problems feeding feeder fish, first the probability that the fish you feed, (unless you breed them yourself) will probably at some point be carriers of disease, or parasites, which could either make your managuense sick, or kill it. You could quarantine for a few months before feeding them, of course.
The 2nd major problem, is that unless your feeders are gut loaded with vitamins and minerals, and fed whole, they will lack many necessary nutrients.
Bones, gut contents, scales, and everything else in a fish, that a fish eats as part of a "natural" diet need to be there.
Feeding fillets will not provide many of these.
And store bought feeders are usually raised as cheaply as possible, so "not" even close to what the wild fish, a predator eats.
In reality a high quality pellet, is much better, and safer.
 
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Problem with breeding feeders as a primary food source is that you have to have a much larger tank than your main tank to keep the jag properly fed with gut loaded feeders. The feeders should be gut loaded naturally as well for this raw natural diet. That is so much work for a raw natural comprehensive diet (frozen foods do not have all the nutrients as Duanes pointed out).
 
I’m definitely going to avoid feeders being that I’ve lost fish to that. Never again, broke my heart to see my favorite fish suffer and die.
 
I agree that staple should be good quality pellets. If you are willing to gut-load insects, I'm sure the managuense will enjoy eating them. That would be about as close to natural as you can get I believe without using feeders (which I also think is a bad idea).
 
Ok so I was thinking
Night crawlers
Gut loaded crickets
Maybe some tilapia filets
Prawns
And nls pellets in the morning.

How does it sound?
 
GTcichlid74 said:
Ok so I was thinking
Night crawlers
Gut loaded crickets
Maybe some tilapia filets
Prawns
And nls pellets in the morning.

How does it sound?
Click to expand...

So NLS for breakfast, and the other insects later in the day? Should be fine. Fish will probably enjoy the variety a great deal.
 
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