Mbuna food

[Larrimore]

I started my first Mbuna tank.  I've read the info about watching the amount of protein you feed them to avoid bloat.  How do I pick a food?  For example, when I look at the Xtreme site, it looks like the breakdown of protein, fat, etc is pretty much the same for all of the flake foods.  The Krill Flake seems to have less protein than the Spirulina Flake?  So, somebody smarter than me, help me out.  What do I need to look for?  Thanks everybody.

[Mr. Ed's Aquatics]

You can safely use the Xtreme foods with your mbuna. I feed mine a combination of the spirulina and krill flakes along with the big fella and 1.5m sinking pellets.

A good example of the warning against high protein diets would be like "never feed mbuna frozen blood worms, tried giving them a treat and killed a bunch of them". It doesn't mean they don't like to have any protein, just that it can't be the only thing that they get. The vegetable and algae helps them digest food, so only protein foods like blood worms can cause Malawi bloat.

If the ingredients list is a good mixture and not all protein, you can feed it to your mbuna. 

[shkote]

I feed mine Xtreme spirulina flakes and Sera Granugreen pellets. They really love the Sera pellets. 

[Collin]

I recently picked up some yellow labs that are quite small, some smaller than an inch. I've got them in quarantine right now to not only prevent any diseases from spreading, but also to ket them grow out a bit before adding them to my display tank. Is the co-op's easy fry food a good idea to feed these guys?

Here are the ingredients:

[Bruce Leroi]

While 55% crude protein is somewhat high for Mbuna, I have used some Cichlid flake for my Mbuna fry with nearly the same protein level.  I have always fed fry a variety of flake foods and would suggest adding Xtreme Spirulina Flake (crushing it up for the fry).

Also, my adults all love the Repashy Soilent Green and I feed that once a week as a treat.