Cichlids are one of the worlds most diverse eaters actually.
Feeding mammal proteins is not good for fish, they aren't built to digest non-aquatic organisms. Also feeding live has many problems of its own. Unless you are Raising your feeders yourself, they have very poor nutritional value and a high likely hood to transfer disease and parasites. The fact that you have a biology background means nothing when you make poor choices for your animals. People like you, that have a setup like yours come on this forum all the time. Then their fish grow kill each other or die off you never hear from them again. I am simply trying to help your setup work. You should feed a good quality pellet exclusively to your fish. Most on here use new life spectrum. Second I would start working on the bigger tank or plan on rehoming your haps. Lastly the blood parrot will eventually get beat on, so I would reccomend rehoming him and sticking strictly to the old world cichlids.
TheCommnunityCichlid, It seems your responses are right along with other people that have opinionated and gave feedback to my tank setup before, which were incorrect, in my opinion. I firmly believe that doing something and arguing it calls for a logical explanation and reasoning.So i will briefly try and summarize why what i do works.
1. Tropomysosin and Actin (Polymer proteins found in almost all major muscle tissues in animal). In these proteins there is an amino acid called
Histadine. The "Bloating" you are referring to occurs if there is a reaction to this type of protein when when antibodies react and release
Histamine. A cichlid will "bloat" if the histidine can not be digested, causing an inflammatory response in the body and they react to the Histamine in their body being released. Histadine receptors are found in cichlids, there is proof that they contain a neurogenic histaminergic system, meaning that their bodies do produce enzymes capable of breaking down these proteins(food).
2. Cichlids do have the capability to have a very diverse diet, including meat. One of the key descriptions of a cichlid is that they have the fusion of the lower pharyngeal bones into a single tooth-bearing structure. Their complex set of muscles allows their upper and lower pharyngeal bones to be used as a second set of jaws for processing food, allowing a division of labor between the "true jaws" (mandibles) and the "pharyngeal jaws". A carnivorous diet is definitely something they are capable of surviving on.
3. My live feed comes from a very reputable fish store. They have their very well maintained live feed tanks and rarely have problems with bacterial outbreaks. This is because they do breed the live feeders themselves.
If you feel so inclined that my setup is not working and will fail, please post a link or send me in the direction of where these "people" you are talking about that have a similar fundamental and biological approach to their setups have failed. Many of the responses you are giving me are responses found in many forums that mainly come from bad personal experiences others have had, but this does not mean that this is how all fish are and act. There has to be critical thinking and logic behind what you're saying or believe, not just forum-generated typical responses. There is a lot of information many people don't have and apply when doing what they do and that is what may cause something to go wrong. I am not blindly doing something to see what reaction i am going to obtain, whatever it may be. I do appreciate the feedback. I think we will agrees to disagree with how we manage our aquatic ecosystems. If you have any questions regarding how i do what i do please feel free to ask. Thank you for reading and your feedback as well. I always appreciate any information and feedback i can get.