what do you feed your cichs to prevent HITH

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easydoesit

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Mar 30, 2008
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New England
i have an Oscar and im seeing a little bit of HITH, i want to get rid of it ASAP. my water quality is fine, but im going to up my water changing schedule just in case.
ive been feeding him Topfin Large Cichlid Floating Pellets for a while, every day. there's a pic of an O on the front of the bag.
when i go to the LFS ill get him crickets sometimes, sometimes i throw in an algae wafer for a treat, sometimes a couple pieces of cat food. but its mainly the pellets every day.

i don't know if these TopFin pellets are really great for a staple diet, they might be lacking some vitamins or nutrients or something.

i was wondering what you guys feed your oscars and larger cichlids to prevent HITH.. or for good health in general. whats the best staple food?
 
HITH is usually a sign of poor water/living conditions. I would switch to a pellet like Hikari bio-gold and stop feeding cat food. Worms, crickets, insects are all great too. Give it a variety in its diet and check your water params. Saying your water is fine doesn't tell much. What are your readings and what is the tank size. Just my opinion but I would not use any topfin products.
 
Feed several types of food. There was a study done, I don't remember where i saw it. Vitamins were used to treat it so you may want to buy some vita-chem and soak the food before feeding.
 
water change, stronger filter/filters, high protin diet for 5 days and veggies for 2 days.
Hikari products IMO, is the best bet.
 
hikari Cichlid gold The fish like it there colours have come out a bit more since ive been feeding my cichlids with it.
 
soggysandwich;1773475; said:
i feed clean water
Click to expand...

that's an odd food:ROFL:

I feed my O cichlid gold, shrimp pellets, frozen shrimp, and the occasional cricket or something.

Water quality causes HITH 90% of the time, only 10% is dietary problems, IMO.
 
How big is your tank, how big is the O, and how much filtration do you have?

Top fin isn't really considered high quality. Hikari or Omega One would be better.
 
my tank is a 55 gallon with a 5.5ish" Oscar. im craigslisting it all over, trying to persuade a lady to go down right now from $400 to $250-$300 on a used 125gal with everything(though i dont really want ALL of the stuff)
i have 2 Penguin Biowheel 350s? i think is the model.. the one with 2 biowheels each. theyre stuffed with spongey mech/bio filtration. great aeriation(sp) in the tank with the HOBs.
my tank is going through a cycle, been for a little bit. i do water changes all the time >: |. the ammo NeVeR goes higher than .25. it rarely gets up to that. i gravel vac when i do my WCs.
im got some filter media which supposedly had BB on it from a LFS(the one that he came from).. but it didnt do anything at all for my tanks. 1 of the sponges out of 4 came from a 75% cycled tank.
im going to try another LFS for some media with beneficial bacteria on it. the water changes are killing me, and i dont want to worry about if hes stressing anymore.
this probably isnt the best idea, but theres nobody i know that has a cycled tank that i could take some media from.
i planted some huge swords in there today too. waiting for the most likely inevitable uprooting from him.
ive read up and am solving the water quality problem, though its not high nitrates and lack of water changes or anything, just the cycle is stressing him out a little bit i suspect. i said the water quality is fine bc i wasnt looking for advice on that since im on top of it, and i didnt want to explain all that with a long post such as this. but thanks anyways.

i was wondering what food people used that is the best for a staple diet. i had a feeling the Topfin stuff wasnt great. he loves it, but he loves everything.
as for the cat food.. lol i only did that once and i might give him a dry piece every once in a blue moon. he gets excited bc of the size of it compared to the pellets.
he loves the crickets, but i dont get them often enough. i need to get a car so i can get to the LFS more often. new job is coming, so a POS billion mile hatch or something is in my near future.

but anyways.. thanks people. sounds like im going to go with some Hikari Gold and ill see if any of the LFSs near me have the vita-chem.

the new diet will be:
Hikari Gold Pellets, soaked in vitaminy water every once in a while
another type of Pellet(not sure which) maybe Omega One
Crickets
Small frozen(thawed) shrimp
some Frozen(thawed) peas for dinner every week or so

sound good? anything else? any more suggestions for food?
also.. for vitamins. i heard that i can crush up reg multivitamins and soak the pellets in the vitaminy water. which ones should i get? i just want lil dood to be all set in his life in the glass box.
 
also- i plan on upping the filtration with a canister or two when he switches tanks
im getting a powerhead for a little bit of co2 distribution/diffusion if he doesnt go crazy with the swords
 
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