High quality pellet is a more well rounded food, and they usually have ingredients in them to bring out colors. Use Hikari Massivore, Hikari Cichlid Bio gold, or Omega one cichlid pellet. I highly recommend the Omega one, recently did some research and asking around, and the omega one seems to be awesome. All natural ingredients and they use whole fish, not fish meal, which is usually the ground up bits that are left after they filet them for human consumption. Look up the Omega, its impressive, and you can get it at Petsmart. Live food is really fatty, which is good for juveniles in moderation cuz they need to fatten up. But if you can get them to take pellets, its an all around better food.