Feeding

Any advice on how often or how much to feed African Cichlids?
Have about 15 in a 1200 gallon pond.

bk wrote:

Any advice on how often or how much to feed African Cichlids?
Have about 15 in a 1200 gallon pond.

It would help to know what sort/size of Cichlid we're talking about. I used
to have about 300 mbuna in a 200 gallon tank. That required quite a lot of
food. If yours were the same size, I'd say they're not going to need
feeding at all in an outdoor 1200 gallon pond. otoh, if you have 15
tilapia, they're going to need to be fed. The usual feeding rules still
apply - only what they'll eat in (at most) 5 minutes.

on the third hand, unless you're in the deep south, African cichlids aren't
likely to be feeding at all pretty soon.
--
derek

Pond is in Miami Beach, FL. Not too concerned about the cold, but may
consider a small heater in jan/feb.
We have Electric Blue, Colbolt, Red Top and Red Zebra. They'll all 4-5". I
want to get them big and colorfull.

--


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"Derek Broughton" wrote in message
...
bk wrote:

Any advice on how often or how much to feed African Cichlids?
Have about 15 in a 1200 gallon pond.

It would help to know what sort/size of Cichlid we're talking about. I
used
to have about 300 mbuna in a 200 gallon tank. That required quite a lot
of
food. If yours were the same size, I'd say they're not going to need
feeding at all in an outdoor 1200 gallon pond. otoh, if you have 15
tilapia, they're going to need to be fed. The usual feeding rules still
apply - only what they'll eat in (at most) 5 minutes.

on the third hand, unless you're in the deep south, African cichlids
aren't
likely to be feeding at all pretty soon.
--
derek

bk wrote:

Pond is in Miami Beach, FL. Not too concerned about the cold, but may
consider a small heater in jan/feb.
We have Electric Blue, Colbolt, Red Top and Red Zebra. They'll all 4-5".
I want to get them big and colorfull.

Then they're going to take some feeding :-) Just stick to the 5 minute
rule, and you should be fine.
--
derek

now the 5 minute rule you are talking about is when it gets colder right?
b/c food doesn't last 1 minute and my GF are growing by leaps and bounds -
literrally.

--
Totus Tuus
Claudia (take out no spam to reply)
"Derek Broughton"
Then they're going to take some feeding :-) Just stick to the 5 minute
rule, and you should be fine.
--
derek

Claudia wrote:

now the 5 minute rule you are talking about is when it gets colder right?
b/c food doesn't last 1 minute and my GF are growing by leaps and bounds -
literrally.

Well, no. It's a basic rule of thumb in the aquarium hobby, and it seems
like a good rule for the pond too, never to feed more than the fish will
finish in 5 minutes. Some people would say even less. But that doesn't
mean that you _must_ feed them for five minutes. In fact, I believe in not
feeding pond fish at all. When I only had GF I never fed them. When I got
Koi, I fed them only to get their attention. If you don't overstock (I had
7 under 1' koi in 5000 gallons), they'll do fine on the things they find in
the pond.
--
derek