A. robertsoni foods

[CA cichlid dude]

Hi,

I am new to this forum. I am a huge fan of CA cichlids, and I currently own a 7'' a. robertsoni. I was wondering what foods everyone feeds their a. robertsonis. I want to keep my fish as healthy as possible. I love this pic even w/ the flash



Thanks.

[Lee Nuttall]

When i first had my robertsoni i had difficulties trying to get them to feed, however they are fine now.

As these are sand sifters, floating foods will be ingnored. I usually feed mine on sinking foods like Tetra Prima, algae wafers and sinking bloodworm pellets.

[Bas Pels]

I've bred a few hunderds of them, and heard some of my fry have not started eating at others. however, these people were mostly - I don't know for all of them - keepers of predatory fish, so perhaps not that well equiped for Astatheros

Mine are fed almost exlusively with Sera discus and Sera vipagran. However, they have been in tanks with many cichlids which eat floating pellets (Tetra cichlidsticks and so on) which are rapidly processed into parts which leave the fish at the gills - and sink. In these tanks the robertsoni were not fed with sinking food, but fed exclusively on this 'debris' In this tank I had my first spawning with them, so this feeding method is not worse than the other.

However, as they are sand-sifters, they will encounter lots of algae, and reletively little animal food. Algae contain lots of vitamins and minerals, but little protein. Meaty food is just the other way around

In case you only provide them with meaty food - that is dead animals - thay might get too little vitamins and minerals

[CA cichlid dude]

Thanks for the replies. I feed mine blood worms, hikari sinking carnivore pellets, and sinking flake foods. I'm sure some swordtail fry become part of the diet since mine breed like crazy. Mine seems to reject algae wafers. Does this sound good?

[Bas Pels]

it does sound a bit too meaty

I'd swap the carnivore pellets for veggie pellets, such as made for riftlake cichlids, myself

[John Heaton]

This is very interesting and explains why I cannot catch robertsoni in the Lake by line fishing.

[CA cichlid dude]

it does sound a bit too meaty

I'd swap the carnivore pellets for veggie pellets, such as made for riftlake cichlids, myself

Thanks. I will look for some sinking veggie based foods. Mine grew from 2'' to 7'' TL in a little over a year. Do they ever get bigger then 10'' in TL?

[Bas Pels]

10 inches?

I never saw anyone bigger than 8 - I got that big one

[CA cichlid dude]

10 inches?

I never saw anyone bigger than 8 - I got that big one

Well, I guess mine is almost full grown at 7''. Someone on another forum said that they had a friend w/ a 12''er I don't see how or if that was true. Mine grew from 2'' to 7'' in almost 2 years. Is that normal?

[Tom Ingvaldsen]

This is very interesting and explains why I cannot catch robertsoni in the Lake by line fishing.

Many years ago, I was on a collecting trip to Mexico. In Tabasco I ran into some local fishermen who had some Robertsonis amongst their catch. I`m not a 100% sure of this but I think they used earth worms as bait. This was in a stagnant muddy backwater portion of an almost dryed out creek, so they might have been quite starved in the first place...eating what ever they came across?! On the other hand,..they look quite fit though.

[CA cichlid dude]

This is very interesting and explains why I cannot catch robertsoni in the Lake by line fishing.

Many years ago, I was on a collecting trip to Mexico. In Tabasco I ran into some local fishermen who had some Robertsonis amongst their catch. I`m not a 100% sure of this but I think they used earth worms as bait. This was in a stagnant muddy backwater portion of an almost dryed out creek, so they might have been quite starved in the first place...eating what ever they came across?! On the other hand,..they look quite fit though.

Well from what I have read-there isn't a whole lot of aquatic plants in Tabasco except water lillies and hythcins (sp?), which are floating plants. A robertsoni, t. meeki, t. helleri, and t. pasiones eat mostly inverts off the bottom, so earth worms would be good bait.

[John Heaton]

Thanks for the info. We will keep trying with earthworms, all the other species like them and some are detritus eaters and sand sifters.