Food for African Cichlids

[5uka]

Ok so I have left the topic title open to all African Cichlids as the point of this topic is the quality of the food product.

Upon inspection of a number of quality foods including NEW LIFE SPECTRUM, NEW ERA and even DAINICHI I would like to pose a number of questions. Firstly it seems no fish food specify exactly how much of each ingredient is in their product. They only provide a contents table with rough percentages of the nutritional value however offer a number of products targeting different fish species yet again in the contents page there are often (not always) only slight differences in the nutritional value.

How much of this is just another example of clever marketing as opposed to quality food?

[5uka]

i myself have used these brands and continue to do so. At the end of the day I'm just wanting quality food for my fish and am after advice whether there really is a difference between these brands and other cheaper options? Another side note is are these brands not using any colour enhancing stimulants at all??? How can they say they promote vibrant coloration in your fish???

[PlecoSam]

Think you are reading to much into it, it's fish food, if they eat it feed it to them.

[5uka]

On the Perth Forum there is an interesting thread on the colour enhancing debate in fish food.

[5uka]

Haha you may very well be right pleco!

[intangcity]

the way i see it we all or most of us know what food our fish need to sustain a healthy life and to display their beautiful colours and of course for most of us breed.most hobbyists know what food is gd and what is bad what is cheap and what is expensive.if you have a gd varied staple diet and keep up water quality your fish should live a lifetime or their lifetime anyways.

Always remember we are keepers of water first before keepers of fish.so water quality comes before food quality.

Some people will say no you cant feed herbivores a carnivore food.well you can due to some of those carnivore foods containing the same ingredients as the herbivore food its just an example.

AS nutritional value goes i prefer to vary my feeding with live,frozen and pellet or flake.or ill make my own therefor i know what goes into it.

With labelling its all marketing its all itll ever be.

[CommandoAndo]

I grabbed a small pack of Dainichi yesterday to try on my fry. So far they are loving it, but obviously it's too soon to tell if it makes any difference for them. I did note though that they had about 8 different cichlid foods available all with apparently different target species or different elements in them. I was surprised to see though that the ingredients on each was essentially identical, with maybe one item difference. Even the vege ones were nearly entirely non vegetable matter. I was surprised for a top of the line food. Perhaps that is normal though?

LFS also gave me some samples of a food that is apparently new - brand is just 'Tropical' and is a German manufactured product. They had a pretty impressive list of ingredients. Still the ubiquitous 'cereals' ingredient item which may well be grain fillers, I'm not sure.