Feeding cichlids? Worth reading especially for Troph keepers

[David R]

So I'm part way thru this thread on MonsterFishKeepers about how we feed our cichlids, and I stumble across this post;

IMO the entire promotion of "species specific" diets is a sham, perpetuated by certain portions of the industry who are in a position to cash in on the ignorance of consumers.

As an example, for decades Tropheus keepers felt that due to the intestinal length & long digestive process in that species, it should only be fed low protein "green" food, and that any amount of animal based protein could cause bloat. The industry was quick to jump on this, offering a plethora of green dyed flakes & pellets, specifically (cough-cough) designed for herbivorous species of cichlids.

Yet science has proven that in captive bred species of Tropheus the intestinal length can be half of what's found in wild specimens.

"Intestinal prolongation, although indicative of specialization on diets with low nutritional value, such as those of epilithic algae and detritus, has been shown to be highly plastic (Sturmbauer et al.1992). In Tropheus moorii the intestinal length of domestic fish measured only 50% of the length found in wild individuals (Sturmbauer et al. 1992)."

A more recent study that was published in 2009 demonstrates just how great intestinal plasticity can be in response to the diet quality of various species of cichlids found in Lake Tanganyika.

http://limnology.wisc.edu/personnel/...gut-length.pdf

The above paper clearly demonstrates just how adaptive wild Rift Lake cichlids can be when it comes to their diet. As long as one feeds a quality food, and feeds that food in limited quantity, the overall diet will generally be a non issue.

Most cichlids were born to adapt.

I haven't looked at the PDF [yet], but was rather surprised at the difference in intestinal length between captive bred and wild caught fish!

I'm only part way thru reading the thread, but have often wondered about the quantity and content of the food we feed our fish. I've had several cichlids that grew large fast and IMO died considerably younger than I would have expected. At the time I blamed warm water on speeding up their metabolism, and still partly do, but I feel that diet and quantity also played a big part.

[F15hguy]

I'd believe it, saw a few JUMBO goldfish that lived in the collection pond from a large hydroponics setup, no food was ever given to them and I don't think any live food would have bred in there. When they died the autopsy showed that they had virtually no stomach or intestines and seemed to have been absorbing the nutrients through their skin

[smidey]

cool, thanks for sharing

[nzcichlidluva]

Hmmmm very interesting!...... Thanks for that

[Godly3vil]

I'd believe it, saw a few JUMBO goldfish that lived in the collection pond from a large hydroponics setup, no food was ever given to them and I don't think any live food would have bred in there. When they died the autopsy showed that they had virtually no stomach or intestines and seemed to have been absorbing the nutrients through their skin

I seriously find that hard to believe dude, would take a lot longer than 1 fish lifetime for them to evolve that much to reduce the stomach or intestines till they are virtually non-existant. Not to mention only living on the nutrients absorbed through their skin and somehow miraculously surviving.