Cichlid Feeding – Pellet Training
Most of the time, cichlid feeding is easy because they are basically predators (carnivores); they like to hunt for their food. The feed you give to them can be part live and part prepared so that they can learn that prepared food is good too. But at first, live foods a great option for these guys
Cichlid Feeding Live food
However, be aware that when you give live feed to your cichlid, you might be putting it at risk. Most of the stores try to keep the feeder fish disease free, but they naturally cannot guarantee anything. There might be micro-organisms in the live fish which will infect your whole aquarium. There are some ways to prevent this, but the risk factor is always there. You can quarantine the feeder fish in a separate aquarium for a while before using them during cichlid feeding time. You might also put them in salt water, which will kill most of the micro-organisms.
Cichlid Feeding – Why Train them to Eat Prepared Foods?
Better safe than sorry: there might be instances when you cannot give live feed for your fish. You may have forgotten to stock up on live feed or your feed cultures may not develop, for example. In this case, it is much better to be able to feed the cichlids pellets instead of letting them starve. They can live without food for a while, but it may lead to consequences like abandoning spawning.
The fish sitter: you might need to leave your fish for some time because of a number of reasons like vacations, illnesses etc. The person you get to watch over your fish will most probably reluctant to chop up worms and give them to the fish. Unless you find a fish enthusiast, your fish will suffer because improper feeding. However, it would be very easy to be able to tell the sitter to just give the fish a few pellets couple times a day.
Automatic feeders: If the fish learns to eat prepared food, you can just attach an automated feeder and you will not need to worry about sitters and care. The sitter, if available can do things other than feed cichlids.
Nutritional variation: The cichlids in the wild have a variety of live foods to choose from which provides them with a balanced diet. In the aquarium, it is not very easy to provide all the nutrients in the live feed; in this case, enriched pellets are a good idea because they will give the nutrition needed.
Cichlid Feeding – Trigger factors
When Cichlid Feeding, the trigger factors are usually smell, look and sound. The pellet will not move around like live feed, it won’t smell like a living things and would not cause a splash like fish or insect would. These factors are important for getting a fish to eat the food. When these factors are absent; the fish is likely to not eat the food.
You can use an eye dropper to make the food move around a bit and take advantage of the water current too. The taste and texture will also be different, the fish may take it in the mouth, only to spit it out because the pellet feels and tastes weird to them. The size will also matter; the pellets are too small to entice the large fish.
Cichlid Feeding – Watch and learn
One way to make the cichlids eat pellets is to put other pellet-eating fish in the aquarium. This way, when the cichlids see the fish eating the pellets, the competitiveness will arise and the cichlids will start eating too.
Being Persistent with Cichlid Feeding
Do not give up easily when you are trying to train your cichlids to eat prepared food. If it refuses the food and stops eating, do not give in and give it live feed. If you do the fish will know that you are not persistent and they will know how to get live food whenever they want it. So when you decide to train it, let the fish starve for a while and eventually it will start eating pellets when nothing else is available. This may sound mean, but this will lead to the betterment off the cichlid eventually. Most cichlids can go without food for at least a month.
Cichlid Feeding – Old and Wild-Caught vs. Young and Captive Bred
If you have bought a cichlid which has been kept captive, it might already be trained to eat pellets. However, if the cichlid is wild, it might need to be trained with effort, it is not impossible but will take a fair amount of work.
Cichlid Feeding – Different Species, Different Reactions
A lot of the aquarists report how various species react in different ways towards prepared foods. For example, young Lugubris species are known to adjust themselves to prepared foods quite swiftly, whereas the young Saxatilis cichlids can be very stubborn.
Cichlid Feeding – The Pecking order
There is a bit of a learning curve to proper Cichlid Feeding. The cichlids which are the most subordinate will most probably take the pellets the fastest.
