Toddster180
Aquarium Advice Regular
- Joined
- Aug 24, 2012
- Messages
- 62
Hi , I have a mixed African chiclid tank , with mbuna haps and peacocks , what is a good all round pellet to feed them ? Thanks
Andrew McFadden said:EDIT to my last post
Hikari sinking cichlid Excel the bag looks like this and I've had no problems with it. I tryed the nls and I'm pretty sure it made my water way more cloudy then hikari. Just my opinion
MetalHead88 said:New life spectrum is great. Hikari gold is made more so for american and contains a lot of protein which can lead to african bloat. Remember mbuna are herbivores.
If you're going to use pellets, soak them first.
The loss of nutrients is negligible. I got all of that info from Ad Konings' Enjoying Cichlids. Mbuna should definitely have a strict diet as there digestive system is literally a straight line.
HUKIT said:There are five main factors that remove or destroy nutrients in food: heat, light, water, oxygen, and time. Allowing pellets to pre-soak deteriorates the water soluble vitamins that are being held together with the binding agents, when the pellets starts to crumble is when the bidding agents are compromised.
More importantly is choosing the correct pellet size that allows the fish to swallow the pellet whole, not chewing which again allows the pellet to release vitamins.
Because its not just high proteins that cause bloat, it's where the proteins are derived from. Just because it's high in protien doesn't mean it will cause gastrointestinal issues.
Proteins are made of amino acids which contain nitrogen, carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen, so as the fish is breaking these non-native foods down they in turn make a lot more nitrogenous waste which as everyone knows will effect water quality...another cause of Bloat.
The idea of excess protein causing bloat, or any type of gastrointestinal issues in herbivores, is completely inaccurate. Poor quality protein, as well as other hard to digest ingredients, can cause bloat, etc., but easily digestible high quality proteins will never cause any dietary issues.
I keep a peacocks and haps mostly and they are carnivores so gold works fine. But yes I do agree a lot of protein for mbuna is bad.