Question about the diet of mikrogeophagus altispinosa (Bolivian ram)

[diogenes]

So i have 5 Bolivian rams in my 37 gallon tank. It's a tall tank with the same footprint of a 29. None of my guys seem interested in coming up to the top for flake food. As a result, I have been feeding them the sinking kind of brine shrimp pellets. I also feed live brine shrimp, and frozen vitamin enriched tubifex worms. I understand that they are omnivores and need a varied diet. How do I get some vegetable matter into their diet? Would they be ok subsisting on the diet i'm feeding them now? Any help would be much appreciated...

Thanks,
-C

 

[Zagz]

I feed some zucchini every week. Sometimes they may take a bit to get interested. Blanche the zuc and use a veggie clip or tie to an ornament or driftwood. They will also eat flake food off the bottom of the tank.

 

[bs6749]

I'd get rid of the flake food and incorporate a high quality pellet food such as New Life Spectrum Cichlid Formula into their diet. Flake foods tend to cloud the water and since I started using NLS, I'll never go back to frequently feeding flake. Feed that along with frozen bloodworms, frozen spirulina-loaded brine shrimp (brine shrimp are pretty much only good for providing roughage in the diet) and occasinally some live bloodworms or orther worms and your fish would have a good and varied diet. I never got my GBR's (Microgeophagus ramirezi) to eat anything as far as vegetation goes but maybe you will have better luck with the Bolivians. My GBR's were incredibly healthy and loved teh NLS pellets, live blackworms and frozen bloodworms.