Which dry food for Dwarf Cichlids? I need your expertise...

So I have a few Dwarf Cichlids (German Rams and Egyptian Mouth Brooders/Victoraie) and I have been feeding them frozen blood worms, live black worms and Hikari Mico Waffers. The Micro Waffers were from a sample pack and they ceratainly like them well enough and I could order more of it but would a "Cichlid" specific food be better for them?  

I was thinking maybe Hikari Cichlids Gold Sinking (Mini) Pellet? Are there better options for the money? Anyway Cichlids are new(ish) to me and any help or help is apprecaited. If all else fails I can ask Mike Wise next month.  

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What size for my Dwarfs?

well... 1lbs shud be 1 year sooo... :]

I meant size food for those small mouths, there are too many options to choose from but i'm guessing the food the size of their head would be too big.  

hahaha. Madness shud chime in soon.
I remember him telling me about fish food that smelled like garlic.
like this.
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NLS is a good staple.

I feed my juvenile sa/ca cichlids ( similar size to dwarfs that are full grown) the 1mm pellets from nls and also the aqueon pellets of the same size. My fish are thriving on these two. They are about th get bumped up to the 3mm size soon.

lloyd378 wrote:I feed my juvenile sa/ca cichlids ( similar size to dwarfs that are full grown) the 1mm pellets from nls and also the aqueon pellets of the same size. My fish are thriving on these two.   They are about th get bumped up to the 3mm size soon.

what is NLS?

New life spectrum.... You can get good deals on it off of amazon ..... Most cichlid keepers swear by it!  Just ask/ pm fishman(Forrest) he has vast knowledge about it and his fish eat only it I believe and his fishes health and color speak for themselves

They have top quality ingredients not much of the bad stuff and you can get it with garlic as someone mentioned/ asked about above

NLS has a specific 1mm cichlid pellet also. They have their Thera A (with garlic) and a new ultra red formula in the 1mm sizes too.

im not a fan of NLS...the cult-like ad copy kinda steers me away from it..

I use hikari for all my non-flakes
marineland is my typical flake, but im trying to find a replacement-
my fish categorically refuse to eat omega one. if you were further south id give you my jar, maybe youd have better luck
im alternating between seachem flakes and cobalt aquatics
the cobalt stuff comes in some ginormous flakes..size of a nickel, a quarter- im not kidding
seachem arrived pretty ground up..really small, smells of garlic- not sure I feel comfortable with that. had discus have a bad reaction to garlic once

don't know if that helps any

I really wanna try that southern delight and the Canadian stuff recently mentioned on list- nice sized kibble, promising ingredients..now where to get it locally? yes, cory , I know you ship..

If I were a smart guy I would email these companies (Hikari, NLS, Ken's) and ask for a sample of each and see what my fish prefer as these all seem like good options and if the fish really like one over the other then there you go! hummmm....

yea...that would work more better than the "buy and hope for the best" approach that I take

I feed NLS 1mm sinking pellets along with DRAF flake. Watch live blackworms with cichlids, they are known to cause bloat. Too much protein in cichlids is not a good thing. A little is fine.

nick_76 wrote:im not a fan of NLS...the cult-like ad copy kinda steers me away from it..

  I know what you mean. I am one of those who believe one food does not rule them all. So I mix it up. While NLS is a good product I have had excellent results with my NLS, Dainichi, Omega One, Hikari mix. I use different size and types of pellets in my mix and the fish just tear it up.

you may need a couple different foods for different requirements.

I have rams Altispinosa and Ramirezi..
SA cichlids usually do fine with higher protein foods.. I do feed them kens spirulina as well as most SA's with forage the bottom and eat mulm/detritus and peck at vegetation.

your Egyptian mouth brooders may require a different specific food in their diet.

as for mine.. I feed tetra colorbits,NLS(my discus do not like this), sera(testing) and cobalt.
they also ge some Bloodworms(frozen and fd) as well as mysis.

Many of the Rams are housed in my discus tanks so the eat with the discus ..they seem to be doing quite well.
the Bolivians (Altispinosa) are often housed in my Scalare tanks..Altums are by them selves but may eventually get some Ramirezi as tank mates after I am convinced there are no issues with them(Blue rams) my Altum are my pride and Joy

The Pseudocrenilabrus multicolor victoriae are omnivores...so a little of both protein and plant is good for them and they are not real picky.

For my tank with apistos, I do Ken's flakes, Hikari freeze dried blood worms and Repashy community plus.

Well I bought some Hikari Cichlid Staple Mini Pellets to try first. I got it for a good deal so I didn't mind experimenting. Learned right away I should have bought sinking, not floating pellets. I knew this but they didn't have that formula with sinking. Oh well.

Second my Rams aren't full size yet and my Victoriae are also small (with the smallest being 1'' or so) and the food is too big to eat whole except the largest of them so I will need to crush up the food first which will also help it sink.

Anyway they still ate it and certainly didn't go nuts over it but I think will take to it. I don't want to waste the food so I'll give it a go for a few weeks and see what the final verdict is. I would say if they end up liking it then I would buy sinking food next time and buy the "baby pellet" size.

Pellet size sometimes limits the amount of choices you have. That is one thing I have to credit NLS for, they do have some small sinking pellets.

DMD123 wrote:Pellet size sometimes limits the amount of choices you have. That is one thing I have to credit NLS for, they do have some small sinking pellets.

Yeah and now I don't want to waste it so I think ill crush it all and work with it, or just try and crush it as I go along per feeding.  

An old school mortar and pestle work wonders for dwarf cichlids.

NLS makes a pellet called "grow" that is very very small. It is higher in protein though so you have to watch how much of it you feed.

dwarfpike wrote:An old school mortar and pestle work wonders for dwarf cichlids.

Funny that crossed my mind but an even faster option is my cheapo coffee grinder that I use mostly for spices... I will clean it out first by grinding rice through it then try the pellets, should be fun:!: 

BallardFishGuy wrote:

dwarfpike wrote:An old school mortar and pestle work wonders for dwarf cichlids.

Funny that crossed my mind but an even faster option is my cheapo coffee grinder that I use mostly for spices... I will clean it out first by grinding rice through it then try the pellets, should be fun:!: 

I thought about that ... but already had two, one for coffee and one for spices ... didn't want a roomie to use the fish one for mourning coffee by accident.  

try hikari discus formula, i know its got a higher protein content but your sa/ca dwarfs should be able to handle. plus being a softer readily sinking pellet the fish seem to prefer it. just my two cents (its what i used on my rams, and all my tang shellies)

Yeah I just tried it and it's not perfect (as it makes lots of food dust) but it works. I'll feed it to my micro-fish too! Maybe I'll take a food strainer and strain out the finest material for the mirco-fish and fry and take the rest for the dwarf cichlids...funny the things you think about when it comes to your fish. My wife thinks i'm nuts...  

Anthraxx wrote:try hikari discus formula, i know its got a higher protein content but your sa/ca dwarfs should be able to handle. plus being a softer readily sinking pellet the fish seem to prefer it. just my two cents (its what i used on my rams, and all my tang shellies)

Didn't think about that, thanks! They love(d) the Tropical Micro Wafers by Hikari and they are perfect size, I just only had a trial bag of it. And it says it's for Cichlids too...just wanted to go after a food that was specific for Cichlids.

Staple is the lowest quality line Hikari makes. Stick with gold or bio gold.

  See this is what I get for not being able to make it to the Co-Op today, my lunch schedule didn't allow it.  Too bad I already opened and tried the food. Maybe i'll save it for my pond fish.  Funny the reason I bought it was because it said "growth formula" which must be marketing speak for "i'm cheap, buy me" and it was one of the only ones that was mini... I wanted to buy Bio-Gold but no dice!

Cory - Do you sell Hakari Bio-Gold or NLS?

I don't sell either. For the price of those products, I'd recommend frozen and live foods. Cichlid gold is very good, the bio-gold has extra enzymes to help it break down easier to reduce waste in the tank.

Aquarium Co-Op wrote:I don't sell either. For the price of those products, I'd recommend frozen and live foods. Cichlid gold is very good, the bio-gold has extra enzymes to help it break down easier to reduce waste in the tank.

Yeah i'm already using Hikari Frozen Blood worms but was looking for a dry food to supplement... what other frozen food would you suggest to compliment that?