Feeding Cichlids

Most cichlids are undemanding feeders. This is an important point often misunderstood by new fish keepers. Forums often receive questions like this:

My –insert fish– won’t eat the Cichlidotopica pellets I bought from Examplaquarium. What does everyone else feed? Why is my fish not eating this food?

I should stress here that not all foods are equal, some are definitely of better quality than others. Equally, price isnt always an indicator of quality.

Almost all cichlids will eat pellet foods, with the possible exception of some pike cichlids (and specialist feeders eg: Tropheus). Fish “trained” on one type of food seems to “prefer” it to other types, however, fish can (and should) be trained to take what they are given. I feed all my fish a staple pellet food (which varies, depending on what pellets I have on hand).

I’ve used and recommend: Orca, HBH, OSI, Hikari, Tetra & Sera pellet foods. Orca pellets are cheap and I get good results mixing these with more expensive products. Orca pellets can be purchased from many fish society meetings and pet shops.

You can also make cichlid food using one of our DIY recipes.