# Feeding schedule/supplementing



## slb.76 (Jul 30, 2012)

Hello. I have 2 foods that I'm thinking I'm alternating daily. First I feed my cichlids once a day. I have 2 food brands and just wondered if I should stick to one or alternate to give variety.

I have North Fin Veggie & Krill Gold Blend. I mix 250g of 2mm Veggie with 80g of 2mm Krill gold mixed in a jar together.

And I have NLS Ultra Red.

I was thinking of alternating foods, for example:

Monday, Wednesday & Friday would be North Fin mix

And

Tuesday, Thursday & Saturday would be NLS Ultra Red

Sundays I don't feed anything as I do water changes and maintenance.

Any advice or opinions is appreciated. I just thought using these premium foods will benefit the cichlids

Cheers


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## slb.76 (Jul 30, 2012)

[No message]


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## Robin (Sep 18, 2002)

Personally I just feed my cichlids one food that I know works for them. (NLS) I've been using it for many years. 
I don't really see the need to feed them different foods--unless for some reason you feel the two foods don't give your fish what they need on their own and therefore you need to use both. In that case I would just use both foods at every feeding.
The other issue I have with feeding more that one food is that then you have two containers of fish food open and unless you go through food fast--have a lot of fish--you've got to be concerned with the food being fresh.

Fish, IMO, don't need variety. At feeding time I don't think my fish think: oh no! Not THIS again!.. No thinking: just a mad scramble to gobble down as much as they can.
But see what others have to say. It's one of those questions where there's no one right answer.

Robin


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## scooter31707 (Aug 24, 2012)

+1..I feed NLS Cichlid Formula twice a day for 15 seconds each feeding. Every Saturday I feed NLS twice with a late snack of krill or mysis shrimp before the lights go out. Fast every Sunday. Every Monday and Thursday, I feed OSI Spirliuna flake food.


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## Kanorin (Apr 8, 2008)

First of all, I'll just point out that it's really hard to get any real data on whether multiple different types of food are better than a single food. It's all anecdotal.

In the past I've tried mixing it up (for my mbuna) with NLS for a base diet, then spirulina 2x a week, fresh vegetables 1x a week - and the fish loved it.
More recently (for both mbuna and haps/peacocks) I've been sticking to a single staple pellet every day of the week...and the fish love it.
The only time that I had a mild episode of bloat was right after I moved and stressed all of the fish out with that.

In an ideal world I'd love to set up 2 side-by-side tanks with identical stock lists, which share their water supply, and test some different types of diets, but that's a lot of effort.

From what I've heard anecdotally, I think there may be some impact of food in bringing out robust deep orange and red colors in certain species, but I think water quality and comfort level are _way_ more important than doing a varied diet.


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