# Which food is better for 1" tropheus?



## Als49 (Jul 11, 2014)

I finally started keeping a colony of 1" Golden Kazumba, and wonder which one is better for them: flakes or pellets?

The flakes I have: 
- JBL NovoBea (for fish 1 - 5 cm)
- JBL NovoColor (for fish 3 - 20 cm)

The pellets:
- JBL GranoColor Mini (for fish 3 - 10 cm)
- JBL NovoBit (for fish 8 - 20 cm)

I also have tablets, too:
- Sera O-Nip

I read that many people recommend NLS, Sera Flora and JBL Spirulina. However those are not available here. Hence among what I have, I wonder if which is the most suited for them?

And is it better to feed them exclusively commercial foods, or mix with some veggies such as lettuce or cucumber?


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## noki (Jun 13, 2003)

Not familiar with these but do these have the percentage of protein listed on the back of the jars? You would want the lower protein foods. See if the colour food (farbfutter?) might have some carotene which might help bring out the color.

You can also try feeding some veggies on a regular basis if you can. See what the fish like.


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## Als49 (Jul 11, 2014)

Their German products and the website is http://jbl.de.

I checked they're about 40% - 43% protein. The JBL NovoColor contains carotenoids and Omega 3.

Between flake and pellet forms, which is more suitable for these 1" Ts?

I'll give them cucumber this afternoon and see how they like it.


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## Als49 (Jul 11, 2014)

Here's what I tried so far:
- Flakes and crushed pellets: eaten very fast
- Nappa and sliced cucumber: ignored

They're in planted tank with anubias, and so far they ignored the anubias


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## ajws9356 (Feb 9, 2016)

I have a couple juvi Tropheus, and I'm not an expert at them, however from what I can see the food they relish the most is algae chips that I break into tiny pieces. They are aggressive feeders, but they really like the algae.


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## punman (Oct 24, 2003)

I kept tropheus for three years and never lost an adult using only New Life Spectrum Cichlid formula. I guess that does not really help you much when you cannot get that brand.


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## Als49 (Jul 11, 2014)

I gave them crushed green peas and they nibbled it 

That's a great idea Ajws as Hikari Algae Wafer is sold here. I'll order it :thumb:

Yes Punman, I read nothing but good stuffs about NLS. Unfortunately there's not available here. They only imported a few types for marine fish.

I'm also curious if the wafers for dwarf shrimps (red bee or red cherry shrimps) are also suitable for trophs? There are some good Japanese brands here.


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## Mcdaphnia (Dec 16, 2003)

My main food for feeding Tropheus fry up to about 1.5" was live Daphnia. Prior to feeding, the Daphnia were fed uncooked peas and carrots pulverized in a blender with water and ice cubes. Daphnia were added in numbers that meant there were always some available for the fry to eat. Live Najas (sometimes called guppy grass) and hair algae was also offered from free swimming but usually not accepted until about an inch long. To avoid problems with development, I used an iodine product for coral reef aquariums. I simply followed the dosages and routine on the bottle for reef aquariums. Once the Tropheus began accepting live plants as food, I would add veggie foods. About once a month I would offer them nori.


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## ajws9356 (Feb 9, 2016)

Not knowing what's available is difficult. Hikari also makes a veggie lovers sinking mini cichlid pellet that is ok.


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## Als49 (Jul 11, 2014)

Mcdaphnia said:


> My main food for feeding Tropheus fry up to about 1.5" was live Daphnia. Prior to feeding, the Daphnia were fed uncooked peas and carrots pulverized in a blender with water and ice cubes. Daphnia were added in numbers that meant there were always some available for the fry to eat. Live Najas (sometimes called guppy grass) and hair algae was also offered from free swimming but usually not accepted until about an inch long. To avoid problems with development, I used an iodine product for coral reef aquariums. I simply followed the dosages and routine on the bottle for reef aquariums. Once the Tropheus began accepting live plants as food, I would add veggie foods. About once a month I would offer them nori.


I have frozen daphnia that I usually give to fry. I thought tropheus musn't be fed animal protein. I'll give them dahonia, too, as part of their diets 

I'm not sure if there's najas here however I usually see cabomba and rotala that look almost similar. I wonder if they're good for 1" tropheus too? They ate crushed green peas


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## Als49 (Jul 11, 2014)

ajws9356 said:


> Not knowing what's available is difficult. Hikari also makes a veggie lovers sinking mini cichlid pellet that is ok.


There are Tetra Bits, some Sera and JBL products, some Japanese brands for koi such as Hikari, Sanyu, Akari, etc. There are some Chinese / Taiwanese brands too.


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## smitty (May 7, 2004)

I would go with flakes.


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## nodima (Oct 3, 2002)

I lost a colony due to over feeding which is very easy with pellets. Since i switched to green (spriulina) flakes, all has gone well. My recommendation would be the green flakes.


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## noddy (Nov 20, 2006)

I know that NLS isn't available to you but just for comparison, I feed NLS grow to all Tropheus fry and it has a higher protein and fat level than reg. NLS.

NLS grow:

Guaranteed Analysis
Crude Protein	50.0% min.
Crude Fat	9.0% min.
Crude Fiber	5.0% max.
Moisture	10.0% max.
Ash	8.0% max.
Vitamin A	8,000 IU/kg min.
Vitamin D	2,500 IU/kg min.
Vitamin E	200 IU/kg min.

NLS cichlid formula:

Guaranteed Analysis
Crude Protein	34.0% min
Crude Fat	5.0% min
Crude Fiber	5.0% max
Moisture	10.0% max
Ash	9.0% max
Vitamin A	8,000 IU/kg min
Vitamin D	2,500 IU/kg min
Vitamin E	200 IU/kg min

I have no problems feeding this to small Tropheus. You want to check the ingredient lists on the food you have and see if it's suitable or not.
Is Sera granugreen available?


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## Als49 (Jul 11, 2014)

smitty said:


> I would go with flakes.





nodima said:


> I lost a colony due to over feeding which is very easy with pellets. Since i switched to green (spriulina) flakes, all has gone well. My recommendation would be the green flakes.


It seems like flakes is the preferred ones. I have two different flakes to feed them.

I also wonder how to make the flakes sink? I released them under water in the tank, but they still floated up to the surface again, then some got sucked into the HOB and surface skimmer. So I turned off the surface skimmer when feeding them, and often forgot to turn it on again.



noddy said:


> I know that NLS isn't available to you but just for comparison, I feed NLS grow to all Tropheus fry and it has a higher protein and fat level than reg. NLS.
> 
> NLS grow:
> 
> ...


NLS Grow for sure has higher protein than the ones I have. They're 40% - 43% protein.

I'll check if Sera GranuGreen is available. Is it flakes or pellets?


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## Mcdaphnia (Dec 16, 2003)

Growing Tropheus need protein. The danger of feeding protein is that it increases the amount of nitrogenous waste the fish and uneaten food produce. Tropheus are sensitive to water quality and so you need to keep nitrites and ammonia undetectable and nitrates low. A short cut to doing this is to feed low protein, low amino acid foods. It works well enough with grown non breeding Tropheus.

Besides over filtration and generous frequent water changes, having fast growing live plants in the tank with the Tropheus or in an attached refugium is important. Guppy grass is a good choice since its soft leaves are readily eaten. It grows easily and years ago it was so prevalent that importers shipping live aquatic plants from the far East would wrap their plants in Najas instead of using dampened newspaper. You have to be pretty cheap to be cheaper than old newspapers. For live aquatic plant growers it tends to be more of a pest than a sales item. http://aquaticmag.com/store/freshwater/ ... ppy-grass/ Another easy live plant is hair algae. A row of small aquariums in windows with a few rocks for attachment is a way to grow hair algae. There are many kinds of hair algae and my Tropheus seemed to prefer the soft silky ones.

Frozen Daphnia is an OK food, but you can't "gut load" frozen Daphnia with vegetables. And the enzymes in the live Daphnia may be denatured by freezing. Live Daphnia also filter feed. They remove any floating dust like food particles and digest them, lowering the bacteria count of the water.


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## Als49 (Jul 11, 2014)

Mcdaphnia said:


> Growing Tropheus need protein. The danger of feeding protein is that it increases the amount of nitrogenous waste the fish and uneaten food produce. Tropheus are sensitive to water quality and so you need to keep nitrites and ammonia undetectable and nitrates low. A short cut to doing this is to feed low protein, low amino acid foods. It works well enough with grown non breeding Tropheus.
> 
> Besides over filtration and generous frequent water changes, having fast growing live plants in the tank with the Tropheus or in an attached refugium is important. Guppy grass is a good choice since its soft leaves are readily eaten. It grows easily and years ago it was so prevalent that importers shipping live aquatic plants from the far East would wrap their plants in Najas instead of using dampened newspaper. You have to be pretty cheap to be cheaper than old newspapers. For live aquatic plant growers it tends to be more of a pest than a sales item. http://aquaticmag.com/store/freshwater/ ... ppy-grass/ Another easy live plant is hair algae. A row of small aquariums in windows with a few rocks for attachment is a way to grow hair algae. There are many kinds of hair algae and my Tropheus seemed to prefer the soft silky ones.
> 
> Frozen Daphnia is an OK food, but you can't "gut load" frozen Daphnia with vegetables. And the enzymes in the live Daphnia may be denatured by freezing. Live Daphnia also filter feed. They remove any floating dust like food particles and digest them, lowering the bacteria count of the water.


I see. Thank you. Now I understand the logic behind the low protein diet for tropheus, and why the breeder whom I bought the tropheus from feed his young tropheus sliced FBW and live daphnia :thumb:

I'll find fast growing plants that look good with anubias in my tank. Lol almost every plant is fast grower compared to anubias though.

Floating plants are definitely the fastest ones, duckweed for ones, however I use surface skimmer so I can't keep floating plants.

I do WC regularly once a week and can increase it to twice a week when necessary


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## Als49 (Jul 11, 2014)

I added vallisneria to the tank, and a few crypt wendtii because some say they're not eaten by tropheus.

So in these few days I gave them a variety of food: flakes, crushed pellets, frozen daphnia, tablets, Chinese napa cabbage, and cucumber.

They didn't touch the napa cabbage and ignored the cucumber when I put them on the bottom. Then after I put the cucumber on the clip, some of them nibbled it. After a few hours, there's hole on the cucumber 

Because not everyone ate the cucumber, I gave them flakes. The ones who nibbled the cucumber left the cucumber right away to chase the flakes. They prefer flakes to veggies! :lol:


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## Als49 (Jul 11, 2014)

I also realized it's a bit risky to feed them frozen daphnia because the daphnia is WC. So instead of frozen daphnia, I'll feed them commercial food with higher protein. I just checked that Sera O-Nip has protein 47.8%, made Fish Meal, Wheat Meal, Torula Dried Yeast, Ca-Caseinate, Grammarus Meal, Spirulina Algae, Krill Meal, Daphnia Meal, Tubifex Meal, Cyclops Meal, Lucerne Meal (Alfalfa), Spinach, Carrots, Pepper, Vegetable Oil, Parsley, Vitamins and Colorant.

And they like it so far.

I wonder if it's good enough for growing 1" tropheus? It has higher protein than JBL NovoColor (40% protein), NovoBea and NovoBit (43% protein).


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## JimA (Nov 7, 2009)

Check out the ingredients for this product. I have been feeding my trophs this food as well as 1mm NLS algae max for quite a while now. I know you don't have access to this product, but you might be able to find something similar ingredient wise. Good luck to you and welcome to the Tropheus world!

http://www.yourfishstuff.com/yfs-super-green-flakes

And like mentioned less food is better for these guys. They will always look hungry :wink:


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## Als49 (Jul 11, 2014)

JimA said:


> Check out the ingredients for this product. I have been feeding my trophs this food as well as 1mm NLS algae max for quite a while now. I know you don't have access to this product, but you might be able to find something similar ingredient wise. Good luck to you and welcome to the Tropheus world!
> 
> http://www.yourfishstuff.com/yfs-super-green-flakes
> 
> And like mentioned less food is better for these guys. They will always look hungry :wink:


I read there are also green peas and carrots in the ingredients. Is it good to occasionally give them fresh raw green peas or carrots?


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## JimA (Nov 7, 2009)

Suppose you can, but I never have. I know you don't want to change up food to quickly, but small amounts over a couple of days so they get use to it.


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## Als49 (Jul 11, 2014)

JimA said:


> Suppose you can, but I never have. I know you don't want to change up food to quickly, but small amounts over a couple of days so they get use to it.


I see Jim.

I finally got Hikari Algae Wafer yesterday, gave 1/4 wafer to them... and noticed there was already an alpha that chased away the others that wanted to eat  I thought the aggression starts when they're juvie at 2.5" up.

Oh, although they're pigs, they eat so little... couldn't finish the wafer within 2 hours so I threw away the remaining.


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## JimA (Nov 7, 2009)

I have had fry at 1/2" start showing some dominance. Even towards some fish twice their size, but then get quickly put in their place. It's pretty fun to watch. That's why it's good to have flake on hand to grind up into really small pieces so they all get at least a bite or two.


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## Als49 (Jul 11, 2014)

Yes, they're very fun to watch. Not skittish at all!

I feed them JBL NovoBea flake once a day in addition to variety of other foods. It's made for growing fish at 1-5 cm. Is a bite or two enough food for each fish?

I see that Tropheus eats very little at a time compared to Geophagus


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## Als49 (Jul 11, 2014)

It's been 2 months and several of them are almost 1.5" and they start to color up


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