Food for breeder peacocks

[Northerly]

I was just wondering if anyone could give some advice on what the best mixture of foods would be for a breeding colony of peacocks. The ratio is 3:9 and they are about 2.5" in length.

[sheamurai]

Your peacocks will breed when tank conditions allow it. No special food is required for breeding.

There were fry in my tank regularly, and I feed my cichlids just a good quality pellet, with a bit of flake and brine shrimp every once in awhile for a treat.

That's not to say you can't feed them a special diet, just that it's not required to order for your fish to produce fry.

[Northerly]

yeah i know its not required for breeding, i was just interested in the best diet possible for health purposes. May i ask what sort of flakes you use/used? I was considering ordering some beef heart flakes or something like that but had no idea what the best option was.

[sheamurai]

Hm, I'm not sure but I don't think beef heart is a good idea. If I remember my reading aright, peacocks eat critters and such they scoop out of sand. I wouldn't be feeding them that type of protein.

To answer your question I buy NLS flake and pellet. I fed brine shrimp as the closest alternative I had locally to the type of bugs/crustaceans I thought they might find. I never bred my cichlids on purpose tho, it was supposed to be an all male tank but a couple females ended up in the tank - so hard to sex juvies...but always had fry in the tank once they started.

Hopefully a current breeder will chime in for you, my experience isn't much help to you!

[Northerly]

so hard to sex juvies...

Too true:p


Anyways, good insight there. I hadn't considered the sand sifting aspect of it. I suppose that would mean that their natural diet isn't too high in protein and is highly variable. So i'll probably be feeding Ken's pellets (Super color/cichlid pellets) regularly and proteins (frozen blood worm, plankton, brine shrimp, etc.) as treats. I suppose I'll shop around for some other high quality protein treats.

Anyone see any problems there? Sounds like a pretty straightforward diet to me.