What Do You Feed Your Malawis

[fishguy2727]

Ditto with NLS.

IME it is by far the best food on the market right now. I can be fed exclusively to mbunas and other fish with sensitive or specialized digestive systems. It has been the only thing I have been feeding mbunas for years and I have not ever experienced bloat, nor have any of my customers or clients. The colors they can achieve with it are unbelievable. Their growth and health should speak for themselves for anyone who actually tries feeding it exclusively.

 

[michaelh]

Ditto with NLS.

IME it is by far the best food on the market right now. I can be fed exclusively to mbunas and other fish with sensitive or specialized digestive systems. It has been the only thing I have been feeding mbunas for years and I have not ever experienced bloat, nor have any of my customers or clients. The colors they can achieve with it are unbelievable. Their growth and health should speak for themselves for anyone who actually tries feeding it exclusively.

Possibly a daft question But what is NLS? Lol

 

[MBOU]

I use a big variety of foods and the malawis do get a fair few prawns, the downside of keeping them with birchirs. However, they are doing great, i find that the protein in prawn, krill, mysis or brineshrimp is much better than bloodworm or beefheart or... well the more meaty stuff...

I have a big bucket of food that is a 30/70 mix of Tetra Pro Colour and Tetra Pro Veg. Thats the staple they get a handful of everyday.

Mixed in they get a handfull of EITHER New Life Spectrum (if i can get it), Tetra Cichlid Algae Pellets, New Era Cichlid Pellets (have several types). Or Tetra Prima if im trying to put some weight on them...

The basis of the diet is always vegetable, they love the seaweed sheets i had for my marines too!

But I just found, in my experience and im not advising it, that a diet lacknig in any protein was just as bad for some of the fish. Keeping fish at work on the systems, we tried all sorts of diets and a diet purely of cichlid algae pellets and spirulina had them losing lots of weight and just not growing too well. Same as being few purely on the New Era pellets, they didnt do well at all, but mixing up foods they did great. The bigger the fish, the less protein they needed.

The only malawis i have seen bloat up was after i had a week off work and someone fed them on tetra pro colour and bloodworm same as the south am cichlids and some of them got bloat... but they werent used to that sort of diet at all....

I think a lot of it is trial and error, baby brine shrimp and larvae would surely be part of mbunas diet of they are built for scraping algae and aufwuchs off rocks?

Just my experience.

EDIT: didnt mean Baby Brine Shrimp would be part of the mbunas diet in the wild just that it would be a good alternative to the aufwuchs they must be eating!

 

[fishguy2727]

NLS=New Life Spectrum. IME it is by far the best food out there right now. I wouldn't think of feeding anything else to my fish. It has high quality, easily digestible protein sources making it a great option for fish like mbunas.

 

[michaelh]

NLS=New Life Spectrum. IME it is by far the best food out there right now. I wouldn't think of feeding anything else to my fish. It has high quality, easily digestible protein sources making it a great option for fish like mbunas.

Oh right thanks alot

 

[pauladair1994]

if u think frozen food shouldnt be used at al all why do componies like oceon nutrition produce it maybe u should tell them that they r doin it all wrong cause u done alot of research with ure cichlid tank

 

[MBOU]

No one said frozen foods shouldnt be used at all, just not ideally for malawis.

Some are ok like those labled as 'greenfood'... bloodworm and beefheart are the worst and some of the shrimps can be used as an occasional treat, but that is it, occasional treat every couple of months.

It wont do harm to them now and then, feeding it regularly can do long term irreversable damage...

 

[dh058977]

if u think frozen food shouldnt be used at al all why do componies like oceon nutrition produce it maybe u should tell them that they r doin it all wrong cause u done alot of research with ure cichlid tank

Companies like ocean nutrition do produce frozen foods but that doesnt mean that they are the ideal diet for Cichlids (nor are they targeted at Cichlids), things like brine shrimp are ok for an occasional treat (hence why I said that in my opinion they should be used sparingly) but not as the main staple of their diet.

The reason why I said 'if at all' is that I have noticed an improvement in the colour, breeding habbits and overall health of my fish since cutting it out of their diet. This is purely based on my fish and my opinon though which I clearly stated in the post.

Chill out, feed your fish what you think is best and enjoy the forum.

 

[fishguy2727]

They sell because you will buy it. As long as people will buy it, someone will make and sell it. That is like asking why goldfish shouldn't go in bowls since a company sells a goldfish bowl.

 

[pauladair1994]

if u think frozen food shouldnt be used at al all why do componies like oceon nutrition produce it maybe u should tell them that they r doin it all wrong cause u done alot of research with ure cichlid tank

Companies like ocean nutrition do produce frozen foods but that doesnt mean that they are the ideal diet for Cichlids (nor are they targeted at Cichlids), things like brine shrimp are ok for an occasional treat (hence why I said that in my opinion they should be used sparingly) but not as the main staple of their diet.

The reason why I said 'if at all' is that I have noticed an improvement in the colour, breeding habbits and overall health of my fish since cutting it out of their diet. This is purely based on my fish and my opinon though which I clearly stated in the post.

Chill out, feed your fish what you think is best and enjoy the forum.