South American cichlid diet?

[aquariumsB2cool]

I was just wondering if anyone has food suggestions for my Oscar, green terrors, and firemouths.
Right now I'm feeding them crickets, goldfish and guppies with live plant supplements

 

[Nothing]

You should feed them mostly pellets with the odd live fish treat if I'm not mistaken. Crickets and feeder fish don't have a lot of nutrition and feeding solely feeder fish can result in lack of coloration, indents in the skin, and other conditions associated with an imbalanced diet. Feeding pellets gives them everything they need in one handy package. You could also feed them bloodworms, mysis shrimp, and other frozen foods like that. Some cichlids like algae wafers too, my girlfriends Festivum goes nuts for them. And I've never tried it but I've heard some cichlids also love bananas oddly enough.

 

[Jmunroe]

Do not feed feeders to your fish. To much risk of disease. Goldfish will actually put something in their system that will stop the absorption of vitamin b. Feed a high quality pellet such as cichlid gold as the base. Give frozen bloodworms or such as a weekly treat along with a weekly feeding of shelled peas or a vegi pellet to help digestive tract. Oscars should be fed vitamin soaked food once a week as well with something like boyds vitachem soaked on freeze dried krill. Vitamin c being the most important. Also feed worms or super grubs or crickets and (my fishes favorite in the summer time) grasshoppers as a treat as well. No live aquatic specimens should be fed. You need a big tank for your stocking such as 150 gallons with a couple huge water changes a week in the 50-75% range or they will end up suffering as adult fish.

 

[Jmunroe]

Just noticed you said green terrorS as in more than one. If you have 2 terrors an oscar and firemouth you will need a 200 gallon as the terrors get big. They grow slow but the oscar will grow fastttt. Never can change too much water on large cichlids. Get API test kit(liquid) and change at least 50% of the water every time the nitrates hit 20ppm once your tank is cycled. If it's not cycled change 50% every time nitrites or ammonia hit .25ppm. The key to keeping these fish healthy is proper diet and pristine water with large water changes.

 

[Freakgecko91]

It's an oscar, two green terrors, two firemouths and it's a 55 gallon, saw it on another thread

 

[Jmunroe]

It's an oscar, two green terrors, two firemouths and it's a 55 gallon, saw it on another thread

Oh. This is not an aquarium that will make it, unfortunately for the fish. Water quality and tank space will have these poor fish suffering before long. The oscar alone needs at least that to himself and even then a 55 is too small really. Each terror will need that much room as well and the 2 firemouths will need that for the pair of them. But all of them together in one tank at 200 gallons your going to have aggression issues.

 

[TheCommunityCichlid]

Upgrade to a bigger tank asap, as for feeding just a high quality pellet like New life spectrum is great no need to mess with any thing else.

 

[aquariumsB2cool]

Thanks guys, I'm working on getting a larger aquarium. They(the green terrors and firemouths) are still juvenile so I didn't feel the need to spend so much money right away, seeing as I already had the 55. As for the diet, my Oscar won't eat non-live food(I understand that's probably my fault). He seems pretty healthy and none of the fish show signs of malnutrition(thought the terrors are quite skiddish). I guess I'll try weening the Oscar off live food. Thanks again

 

[TheCommunityCichlid]

IMO your only going to see the need for a bigger tank once they kill each other. Better to spend the money before you learn that lesson

 

[NYgiantsRP]

I feed new life spectrum cichlid pellets, dried shrimp, and lettuce once in a while.