What are the common misconceptions in flowerhorn cichlid keeping?

The flowerhorn cichlid is a new fish breed produced through continuous crossbreeding, also known as the flowerhorn. The flowerhorn has a very beautiful appearance and extremely high ornamental value, so it is very popular on the market. So for a beginner keeper, several small mistakes are often made when keeping flowerhorn cichlids. Let's take a look below and see how many of them you have fallen for.

1. Fry selection

Selecting flowerhorn cichlid fry is a rather painful task for beginners, so when choosing fry they often easily trust others and pick the strongest, most perfectly shaped fry, but this is actually not entirely correct. Fry selection for flowerhorn cichlids is actually similar to that for most fry: we should choose fry with even body shape, bright colors, high activity, and no external injuries or other pests and diseases. Such flowerhorn cichlids are then very suitable for keeping.

2. Water quality management

The flowerhorn cichlid has relatively high requirements for water quality, so many people want to recreate the flowerhorn's natural growing environment and use artificial breeding techniques to change the water frequently to maintain water quality, replacing all the water each time. This is actually not correct either. Generally speaking, the flowerhorn cichlid is more suited to growing in neutral or slightly acidic water, so when changing the water we should replace only about one fifth, and only one water change is needed per week. This can greatly reduce the mortality rate of flowerhorn cichlid keeping.

3. Feeding misconceptions

The flowerhorn cichlid differs greatly from other fish in feeding. Its digestive system is not very good, and if you are not careful, intestinal diseases can easily occur. Many people new to keeping fish want the flowerhorn to grow faster and better, so they buy some high-nutrient refined feed, but this is actually not correct either. Some other people feed at random times and in random amounts, with no fixed schedule and no standard, which also easily causes the flowerhorn to get sick. We should mainly choose feed that is easy to digest and absorb, then feed on a fixed schedule, and reasonably increase or decrease the feed according to the flowerhorn's feeding situation and the weather conditions. Meanwhile, yellow mealworms, small fish, small shrimp and the like that are usually used to feed other fish are all suitable for feeding flowerhorn cichlids.

4. Daily management

Many people also often make small mistakes in daily management, such as forgetting to clean the breeding facility or not disinfecting it for a long time; these are problems many people overlook. The correct approach is to record the daily work and the flowerhorn's daily condition, so you can more intuitively understand the flowerhorn's life characteristics, and based on the daily data, reasonably carry out the daily management of the breeding facility, so that the flowerhorn can grow more healthily in a suitable environment.

The flowerhorn cichlid is a very popular ornamental fish on the market today, and in recent years its economic status on the market has also been extremely high. That is all for today's introduction from the editor. If you have other questions you would like to discuss, you can also leave a message for the editor.