# firemouth cichlid foods



## tjens215 (Jun 20, 2011)

I was recently removing debris from our ground fed pond that has been tested and is 100% safe and noticed A LOT of macro invertebrates like helgramites, snails, smaller leeches, dragonfly larvae... etc, and was wondering if anyone has any ideas if it is okay to use these as food for my fire-mouths. I don't want a reply saying "you should never use things from the environment to feed to your fish because they could die from it!" Like I said, water gets tested every yea and is fine! If you have helpful information I thank you in advance...


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## smitty (May 7, 2004)

I would definitely use them. That is the kind of stuff I look to get my hands on.


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## phishes (May 17, 2005)

Those are foods that firemouths would eat in the wild. They eat inverts and small fish off the bottom as there is little veggie based foods in their nattural habbitat.


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## Elijah (Mar 30, 2011)

Yea my firemouth loves 2 week old convict fry. He gobbled up 17 in less then 12 hours! They really brought out his colors! Other then that, he loves Cichlid Gold pellets.


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## jturkey69 (Jun 6, 2011)

tjens215 said:


> I was recently removing debris from our ground fed pond that has been tested and is 100% safe and noticed A LOT of macro invertebrates like helgramites, snails, smaller leeches, dragonfly larvae... etc, and was wondering if anyone has any ideas if it is okay to use these as food for my fire-mouths. I don't want a reply saying "you should never use things from the environment to feed to your fish because they could die from it!" Like I said, water gets tested every yea and is fine! If you have helpful information I thank you in advance...


Good info to know..and hello from a fellow Cheesehead


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## tjens215 (Jun 20, 2011)

thanks guys, kind of what i figured. I threw anything that was moving into the water and they just ate them up... i keep having to get more and more snails, smaller ones, but the next day they are all gone. Seeings how the tank is 40 gallon I first thought they were just scattered within the substrate and whatnot, but I have probably put close to 100 in now and I am pretty sure they are gettin eaten whole. since doing this the one pair has tried to have babies 2 times (unsucsessful so far) and the other female laid eggs once but never got fert due to no other male. I tell ya, worth the time collecting them out of the water!


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## jturkey69 (Jun 6, 2011)

Awesome!!...thanks for the follow-up!


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## belxavier420 (Aug 19, 2010)

One thing to be careful of is fish can eat them selves to death, especially with live food. I made the mistake of mixing 1 week old firemouth fry with 6 weeks old. A few of the 6 week old ate so much their stomachs exploded.


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## tjens215 (Jun 20, 2011)

yea I hear ya, gluttons they can be.

ALSO now I noticed I have a little bit of a problem. Today I woke up and noticed there were lots of small specs on the glass now, and looked quite closely. I believe they are tiny planaria growing on the side. Not a problem, which I know they are in the water that I have been getting my macro inverts from. Just wasn't thinking that this would happen but oh well. They wont be a problem really because they feed mostly on plant food and what not but there tons of them. I just took my glass scrubber and wiped them off. If they end up being planaria, does anyone know of anything to kill them? I just don't want to get overrun by them and have to constantly scrape the walls.


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## Auballagh (Jan 29, 2003)

A group of 14, young Astyanax mexicanus tetras destroyed a case of planaria I had going in a 180G, within ONE WEEK.

Buenos Aires, Black Skirt, Columbian Tetras or many other species of omniverous dither fish should also work nicely to fix this problem.


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