anyone have a texas cichlid?
5 posts
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milky648 - Posts: 194
- Joined: Sat Mar 10, 2007 4:41 am
anyone have a texas cichlid?
Id like to know how els hase a texas and what u feed them and how often my texas is abou 8 " he is 4 years old.
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natalie265 - Site Admin
- Posts: 746
- Joined: Sat Nov 01, 2008 9:48 pm
I don't have a texas cichlids, so i don't know if this is comparable, but i feed my peacock cichlids daily. I like to give all my fish a varied diet. Typically they get flakes and/or pellets 3-4 days per week, frozen blood worms 1 day per week, peas 1 day per week and fast them 1-2 days per week.
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milky648 - Posts: 194
- Joined: Sat Mar 10, 2007 4:41 am
So how many times in a day u feed them, how many tanks do u have? I feed my afrcans and my texas 2 times a day i feed mon , wed,friday and nothing for the weeckend or is that to much fasting.
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natalie265 - Site Admin
- Posts: 746
- Joined: Sat Nov 01, 2008 9:48 pm
I have four tanks and feed my fish once per day. Most fish are probably fine with only being fed three times per week. If yours are doing well, then i wouldn't worry about it. Personally, i can't resist the constant puppy dog eyes staring at me from the tank.
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Okiimiru - Posts: 275
- Joined: Thu Feb 05, 2009 10:19 pm
Feeding frequency depends on the type of fish you have; where it is in the food chain.
Grazers: These omnivorous fish like to eat a little bit of this, a little bit of that, munching all day long basically nonstop. These fish aren't very predatory and focus more on vegetables and detritus. They benefit from small, frequent feedings and a little bit of vegetable content in their food.
Insectivores: These fish like to eat multiple times a day. When an insect drops onto the surface of the water they dart forward quickly and snatch it from the surface before another opportunistic feeder can. They benefit from small frequent feedings as well, and would enjoy the occasional freeze dried gammarus shrimp in their diet.
High tier predators: These fish are true carnivores, eating nothing but meat. They are generally larger and have disproportionately wide-opening mouths for their body size. They like to eat other fish, and they won't eat vegetables. These fish are hunters. Because in the wild they only eat when there is prey, they are capable of eating infrequently and large amounts at once. They can go a day or two without eating and be fine. I've heard that snakes and alligators can easily go a week between meals, but have never kept one so don't know firsthand if that's true.
You just have to figure out what category your fish is in. Not everything eats every day in the wild; if lions ate three meals a day there wouldn't be any gazelles left, right? So the really large top tier predators can indeed go longer between meals. Myself, I'm a small fish keeper at the moment. I like the super tiny fish, and there aren't very many tiny top tier predators, lol. I feed my guppies three times a day (more if there are fry in the tank). I feed my gulf coast pygmy sunfish (Elassoma gilberti) once a day in the morning, but they get hungry again by the evening.
Your texas cichlid is not a top tier predator. According to aquaticcommunity,com, "Wild Texas cichlids live on insects, crustaceans, worms and plant matter, and it is advisable to mimic this varied diet in captivity." That means they're somewhere between the insectivore and the grazer. They don't want to go three days without food. They want a meal multiple times a day, every day. They don't fast in the wild, so you don't need to fast them in your aquarium.
Grazers: These omnivorous fish like to eat a little bit of this, a little bit of that, munching all day long basically nonstop. These fish aren't very predatory and focus more on vegetables and detritus. They benefit from small, frequent feedings and a little bit of vegetable content in their food.
Insectivores: These fish like to eat multiple times a day. When an insect drops onto the surface of the water they dart forward quickly and snatch it from the surface before another opportunistic feeder can. They benefit from small frequent feedings as well, and would enjoy the occasional freeze dried gammarus shrimp in their diet.
High tier predators: These fish are true carnivores, eating nothing but meat. They are generally larger and have disproportionately wide-opening mouths for their body size. They like to eat other fish, and they won't eat vegetables. These fish are hunters. Because in the wild they only eat when there is prey, they are capable of eating infrequently and large amounts at once. They can go a day or two without eating and be fine. I've heard that snakes and alligators can easily go a week between meals, but have never kept one so don't know firsthand if that's true.
You just have to figure out what category your fish is in. Not everything eats every day in the wild; if lions ate three meals a day there wouldn't be any gazelles left, right? So the really large top tier predators can indeed go longer between meals. Myself, I'm a small fish keeper at the moment. I like the super tiny fish, and there aren't very many tiny top tier predators, lol. I feed my guppies three times a day (more if there are fry in the tank). I feed my gulf coast pygmy sunfish (Elassoma gilberti) once a day in the morning, but they get hungry again by the evening.
Your texas cichlid is not a top tier predator. According to aquaticcommunity,com, "Wild Texas cichlids live on insects, crustaceans, worms and plant matter, and it is advisable to mimic this varied diet in captivity." That means they're somewhere between the insectivore and the grazer. They don't want to go three days without food. They want a meal multiple times a day, every day. They don't fast in the wild, so you don't need to fast them in your aquarium.