Main types of food for cichlids.
Cyclops – Today, Cyclops is the safest and most versatile natural food for cichlids. Cyclops consists of protein, fats, carotenoids, and ballast substances, with all its components being very well proportioned and balanced. It can be used for feeding both juveniles and adult fish, and can be used regularly, i.e., day after day and several times a day. Cyclops can be used for feeding carnivorous and herbivorous, as well as algae-eating and detritivorous cichlid species.
The safest application, without any complications for the cichlid gastrointestinal tract, is recommended in frozen form. When feeding with live Cyclops, there is a risk of introducing unwanted pathogenic bacteria from the catch water body, especially from waters where fish live. In addition, when feeding very small fry, for example, some substrate-spawning species, live Cyclops can attack the latter because it is a predatory organism and may perceive small fry as prey.
When live Cyclops is introduced into the aquarium, many cichlid species experience a certain amount of anxiety, which can manifest as twitching of the body and fins, darting around, color change (darkening), and settling on the bottom with folded fins. Therefore, it is most sensible to use frozen Cyclops as the safest, most versatile, and easily digestible food for cichlids, rich in protein, and as a food that promotes normal digestion when using “heavy”, hard-to-digest foods, acting partly as a mild laxative.
Cyclops helps enhance cichlid coloration, both when used as a starter food for juveniles and when feeding sub-adults and adults. Moreover, the color of the Cyclops itself (red, brown, green, gray) is not of primary importance for improving cichlid coloration. Even with regular feeding, Cyclops, as a very small food item, cannot be consumed in large quantities at once, so saturation and subsequent digestion occur gradually without overloading the system.
You can feed with frozen Cyclops regularly, i.e., multiple times a day and day after day. Feeding restrictions are mainly related to the number of fish in the aquarium and the efficiency of the filtration system. With poor filtration, an overdose of Cyclops can lead to aquarium imbalance (cloudy water, clogging of primary filtration stages, siltation of the substrate). As an easily digestible food, it is best to feed Cyclops after feeding hard-to-digest foods, alternating the sequence of “heavy” and “light” foods. Such alternation is mandatory because it greatly facilitates the entire digestive process and protects the gastrointestinal tract from damage and diseases.
It is best to use frozen Cyclops in a thawed state; feeding with large, unthawed pieces should be avoided, especially when feeding sub-adults and adults, as this can lead to complications such as food getting stuck in the mouth or esophagus, asphyxiation, colds, and even death. After all, fish, like other animals, try to grab a bigger piece, and the smaller the size of the “eater”, the larger its relative needs.
When feeding small fry, the use of unthawed pieces is quite acceptable – this portion thaws gradually while floating near the surface, and the fry eat the thawed Cyclops fractions without the risk of swallowing a whole piece, which is simply too big for them! As a food, frozen Cyclops is versatile because it can be used to feed almost any cichlid regardless of species and size, with the possible exception of large piscivorous predators.
Chaoborus (Glassworm) – is a highly nutritious and quite high-calorie food containing unsaturated fatty acids (liquid fats) that enhance cichlid breeding readiness and capability. Chaoborus can be used for feeding cichlids in both live and frozen forms, although the former is less preferred due to the fear of introducing various infections into the aquarium. Live Chaoborus is relatively insensitive to dissolved oxygen and can live in the aquarium for a certain time until eaten. It does not burrow into the substrate like live bloodworms and does not pollute the water, while being equal to bloodworms in caloric value.
Live Chaoborus has a certain buoyancy, allowing it to swim both in the water column and near the water surface. Frozen Chaoborus can be considered with a sufficient degree of objectivity and safety as a staple food for many cichlid species, provided certain single-dose restrictions are met. For more convenient single feedings, the frozen “blister” of Chaoborus can be broken into convenient pieces (fractions) and placed in a plastic container with a lid.
Feeding frozen Chaoborus is done either by pre-thawing a single portion in water or by letting it thaw directly in the aquarium – for this, you simply submerge your hand with a piece into the water and wave it from side to side (the Chaoborus thaws gradually and is eaten by the fish). Dropping a whole piece into the aquarium for gradual thawing and eating is not recommended to prevent an individual fish from grabbing and swallowing a large chunk, which can lead to undesirable consequences.
Feeding both live and frozen Chaoborus should be rationed to prevent overfeeding. Uneaten remnants of frozen Chaoborus floating on the aquarium surface must be removed with a dense net, because uneaten remains spoil very quickly and become covered with Saprolegnia fungus, which will inevitably cause gastrointestinal disorders or other diseases.
For a particular cichlid species, Chaoborus can be considered both a staple and a supplementary food – it all depends on their dietary specialization. Some cichlid species, especially bottom-dwelling ones, react reluctantly to frozen Chaoborus floating on the water surface. For this purpose, it is necessary to forcibly “sink” the Chaoborus, giving it “temporary negative buoyancy” – it is enough to create a slight turbulence (whirlpool) in the aquarium with your hand, and the Chaoborus will begin to sink partially under the vortex currents. For cichlids living near the bottom, this is quite enough to catch the Chaoborus larvae floating in the water column.
Bloodworms (Chironomid larvae) – one of the most common natural foods. These red worms, popular among aquarists and rich in hemoglobin, turn out to be a very extreme food for cichlids. In aquarium hobby, three types and sizes of bloodworms are used: large (“fisherman’s”), medium, and small (“liman”). The first two (especially the first) can be used to some extent for feeding cichlids, but should only be considered as irregular feeding, i.e., quite rare supplementation and nothing more, and this supplementation must be strictly rationed.
“Liman” bloodworms are better excluded altogether from your pets’ diet. If you still decide to include bloodworms in the diet, it is better to use them in frozen form, as this is safest according to the same criteria inherent in live foods. Large bloodworms are mainly used only for feeding large piscivorous predators. Bloodworms are also used in dry (dehydrated) and freeze-dried forms in aquarium keeping.
When feeding, you must match the size of the bloodworms to the size of the cichlids you are going to feed. There are frequent cases where bloodworms are fed to juveniles that are unable to swallow them. If you decide to feed bloodworms to juveniles, it is better to chop them using a hard surface and a razor blade, or scissors as a last resort. The resulting “mash” is fed to the juveniles, and uneaten residues should be removed to avoid spoiling the aquarium water. Due to poor ecology, health issues in cichlids can also be caused by the presence of various poisonous and toxic substances present in bloodworms harvested from ecologically unfavorable rivers and ponds.
Culex (Black Mosquito Larvae) – “Black bloodworm”. A nutritious and quite high-calorie food containing a large amount of animal proteins. The larvae of this mosquito are very small, black in color, and, according to experienced aquarists, black mosquito larvae are an excellent activator for spawning and high-quality fertilization. As a rule, it is used in frozen form; good quality is indicated by a dark, almost black color of the larvae with a faint specific odor (marsh smell). It has never been found during harvesting and in the pet trade in such abundance as, for example, Chaoborus or red bloodworms. Moreover, nowadays this food is very rarely found in the pet trade.
Nevertheless, its use for feeding cichlids is entirely acceptable, provided that the restrictions mentioned in relation to large bloodworms, for example, are strictly observed. It is best to use it in frozen form, in measured amounts, and irregularly. For many species of Malawi and Tanganyika cichlids, Culex can be considered both a staple and a supplementary food. An exception is made by representatives of cichlid genera such as Tropheus, Petrochromis, and other highly specialized genera in terms of diet.
Daphnia – although Daphnia is widely used as food for aquarium fish, using Daphnia to feed cichlids from Lakes Malawi and Tanganyika is inappropriate. And while feeding with “spore-bearing” Daphnia is somewhat acceptable, feeding with “viviparous” Daphnia is simply contraindicated. Low nutritional value and high ballast content, along with the risk of overeating up to the rupture of the cichlid stomach walls (especially in juvenile Haplochromines), speak of its uselessness rather than usefulness, which is why it is not included in the dietary spectrum used for lake cichlids.
The nutritional value of Moina is much higher than that of Daphnia, and its protein content can reach 50%. It lives in freshwater, brackish, and saline waters and can be used to feed fry and small-sized fish. Moina caught from natural water bodies is best used frozen. When feeding, one should not forget that Moina is a high-fat food, so feeding these crustaceans should not be regular. Indicators of good quality in frozen Daphnia/Moina include: a uniform red (or its shades) color of the crustaceans, a faint specific odor, and the integrity of the shell (carapace).
Artemia, Granules, Flakes, Tablets, Seafood and Vegetable Assortment.
Which cichlid food is better? The amount of food needed by cichlids. 
