Krill/Brine/Bloodworm/Plankton/Mysis?

[BassetsForBrown]

For an Oscar, EBJD, Blood Parrot, Green Terror, aquarium which of those foods do you think is best? Obviously variety is the spice of life, and none suffice as a staple food, but if you only could pick one?

Please do not list live/dormant food specimens. (meal worms, crickets, night crawlers) Even though they are no doubt an amazing addition.

 

[BassetsForBrown]

I personally would say Krill or Brine, but Krill if I could only use one.

 

[darth pike]

Mysis -> Krill -> Bloodworm -> plankton -> brine

What I would use in descending order for larger cichlids.

 

[ryansmith83]

Most large cichlids love mysis. I've had some spit it out though. I like the Piscine Energetics brand of it which is larger and meatier. It's also much more oily, so I usually break off a chunk and rinse it under tap in a net to get some of the oil off. Otherwise you'll see an oil slick on top of your tank.

Brine is almost entirely water and you'd need a ton of it for large fish to get any real nutritional value out of it. It's great for dwarf cichlids and other small fish, otherwise I think it's a waste of time.

Frozen bloodworms (I use Hikari brand) are always on hand because my discus love them and they're great for getting new/stubborn fish to eat. Again, it's probably not very cost-effective to use these frequently with large cichlids but as a snack now and then it'd be fine.

I bought tons of frozen krill (also Hikari) and absolutely zero of my cichlids eat it. I have no idea what their problem is, or why they don't like it, but I cannot get anything to eat it. That includes severums, festivums, my psittacus when I had him, all my species of Geos, Dicrossus, pikes, Heroina, Krobia, etc. They all chew it and spit it out, and I find it stuck to my AquaClear prefilters. I quit bothering with it.