I can't get my guppies to breed fast enough to keep my cichlid fed (it doesn't help that the guppies always manage to eat a few themselves) the way I want to (one live meal every 2 days). So, I was considering the possibility of using Zebra Danios as feeders, since they lay 200-300 eggs at a time, compared with getting on average about 5-10 from the guppies. I'm wondering if anyone has any experience with this, how hard is it to get Danios to breed, and do the fry make good feeder fish for cichlids? I've got a lot of reservations about it that I need to get addressed before making the change.

danios will readily breed. infact, they will probably breed in your tank without you noticing. i would cover the bottom of the tank with marbles, get rid of the clown loaches and ghost shrimp (the clowns get much to large and the ghost shrimp may eat the eggs.) the problem is they are so tiny, that it would take a good 2 weeks to a month for the cichlid to notice them. i would get mollies instead of guppies and buy a breeder cage like this one:

http://www.petco.com/Shop/Product.aspx?R=1...&familyID=7449&

you'll find a good description of what it does, but theres a grate with slits in it that sits about 2/3 down in the box. the mother is in the above 2/3. when she has her babies, they fall down thru the grate, where she cant get them. once she has had them all, stick her back in the main tank and take out the grate in the breeder box. this gives the babies a secure, well airated pace to grow untill their big enough to not get eaten by the parents. i have 3 of these that i used when i bred livebearers and they work great :). i had a molly that gave me around 200 fry once.... she had beeen hoding for 5 months or so...

Yeah, I already have a breeder box. But I always ended up putting the female that gave birth last in it. It wouldn't bother me if it took 2 months before I could feed the cichlid with them. But, I do want to keep ghost shrimp too, so that might prove to be a problem for me. I know my livebearers are compatible with the ghost shrimp, but if they will tear into those eggs, then we might have a problem there.

Cichlid-flake is a good alternative.... or I know a little place that sells them for .15 a piece. We hope they don't have tb though. Buy with caution. They didn't look too sick. Cichlids are tough you know. =)

Yeah, I definately don't want to buy those nasty diseased feeder fish again. The whole point to breeding them myself is to keep from having to kill my cichlid from some $0.15 feeder fish with dropsy.

Anyway, I have plenty of staple food, I just like feeding live food once every 4 meals. I try to give him a varied diet, and he hates the blood worms I got for him. I also try to vary what I give him as live food, every other time I feed live food, I change between ghost shrimp and feeder fish. Hence the reason I want to have a breeding tank for feeders with lots of live plants, freshwater clams, ghost shrimp, and whatever kind of feeder fish I decide on. I'm not entirely sure what size tank this will all go in... I'm thinking of maybe getting a 90g for the sw tank, using the 29g for the cichlid (and adding a few more cichlids) and then buying a 20g as the feeder fish breeding tank. I don't know what I'll do with the 2 10g's I've got. Possibly nothing, or maybe I could make one into a ghost shrimp breeding tank... and the other into I don't know what.

hmmm....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hole_in_the_head_disease

i may be out of place sugesting this but you could also use feeder crickets. its a cichlids primary diet in the wild

and you can get 12 for like $1.20

Crickets aren't that nutritious either unless they're gut loaded.
Breeders often condition Oscars on whole crayfish.
Quality, modern prepared foods often ensure the most nutrition when used in a varied diet.

Back to the start of this thread, what species of cichlid are you feeding?

Actually, I could gut load some crickets. I was considering building a cricket box in the garage last summer anyway, for bait though. I know, I'm a fishkeeper and a fisherman, my hypocrisy knows no bounds.

It's a Red Zebra. I also now have a new addition, which my wife brought home. It's just a young fry and too small to make an accurate identification on, possibly a five-banded cichlid.

Gut loading? Do i even want to know the answer? I caught crickets in my front yard and tried to feed them to my 2" oscar. He wouldn't have them. I tried feeding them to my tiger barbs, too. They seemed to like them a bit more, but unless the fish can the cricket in one bite, be careful because they sure do make a mess in your aquarium.

Gut loading isn't as gruesome as it sounds. You feed the crickets something nutritious (I think you can buy some kind of paste or powder for this), and when your fish eat the crickets they get the benefit of it.

My oscars used to love those little red worms, too, when they were small -- earthworms and nightcrawlers when they were bigger.

Hmm sounds good. What about jack dempseys? Whats the smallest tank that you can keep one in? And can you keep them with tank mates? How about a 40 breeder?