Midevil diet

[guapoteman]

Most of my research has listed Midas/rd as carnivorous. I currently feed hikari gold and red worm/nightcrawler. Just curious if anyone knows if there's any benefit to adding some sort of vegetable matter and if so what

 

[duanes]

In a study by George Barlow (link below)
The gut contents of wild type Midas cichlids were analyzed (gut finding on p338), with algae from lake aufwachs, being the major component, followed by insects, then snails and some fish parts.
http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1022&context=ichthynicar

 

[guapoteman]

Very informative article thx for the link now to get him to actually eat it lol

 

[RD.]

From that same article ....

Thus, the pattern that emerges is of a highly omnivorous and opportunistic feeder. It starts life as a predaceous fry but soon shifts to an omnivorous way of life, consuming appreciable amounts of plant matter. But as it approaches maximum size it appears to shift toward being more piscivorous.

And even a piscivore consumes some plant matter, via the stomach content of their prey. Plant matter can offer many nutritional benefits, especially aquatic plant matter, such as valuable vitamins, minerals, and various bioactive compounds. Some of these compounds have been shown to have biological effects in fish such as growth promotion, immunostimulation, anti-stress, anti-bacterial, anti-fungal, anti-virals, as well as appetite stimulators.

 

[Bigcatfishrule]

I fed mine Hikari Cichlid Gold pellets, peeled peas, unshelled prawn tails, algae wafers(intended for my bristlenose), and whatever insects landed in his tank(which was a lot because his tank was outside and had a bright light). cheers, Jim