how much to feed our cichlides

Question
A friend of ours has cichlides but he keeps killing them off.  We think that he is not feeding them enough.  Can you suggest how much and how often that he should  feed his cichlide fish he has a 90 galon tank.  The only thing is he only has 4 fish left.  Started off with 12.  

Answer
Hi Rika,
 The odds are very low that he is not feeding them enough. Most people overfeed their fish.  I feed my fish once a day with a few flakes per fish. That is all they need. Anything else will just rot in the tank.  You should only put enough food in the tank that the fish will eat in a couple of minutes. You never put food for them to "eat later".  That will kill them.

 I also skip feeding them about once every 7 days.

-- Ron
  rcoleman@cichlidresearch.com
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