Best Foods:
1. What they are eating now and thriving on.
2. Pellet Foods - New Life Spectrum 1mm Cichlid Formula, Hikari Cichlid Excel - mini pellet, Dainichi Veggie Delux, or Dainichi Veggie FX - baby pellet. All other pellet foods in my opinion is suspect. There are a lot of other foods out there that are having success with increased size, but the color is severly diminished. Lots of people are also trying high-end Koi pellets and having good results.
3. Flake Foods - Any flake food with a high vegtable protein content, ones with spirulina are best. I use Aqurian Tropical Flakes with lots of success.
4. Fresh Foods - Fresh veggies such as romaine lettuce, seaweed, frozen peas unslated, and parched zuchini. Prep the food just as if you were going to eat it yourself.
5. Live/Frozen foods - Mysis Shrimp, fresh whole shrimp, and other crusteans that still have a harder shell no slimy shell like brine. Lots of people feed brine, but I shy away from that. because its slimy. I would not feed live/frozen as a daily staple, but no harm in 1-3 times a week as a treat.
With any change in Tropheus Diet, ALWAYS TAKE IT EASY at first. Blend in over a two week period if your changing their daily staple. If adding live/frozen foods take it even more easy and wait to see their response to it first.
Pellet foods are more nutrious thus require less intake which makes for less feeding. The pellet if floating will not generally get into filters, and the sinking pellets typically if they make it to the bottom, stay on bottom till eaten.
Flake foods can be more messy, but generally always do best as a first food on any arriving fish. So, in my opinion it is always best to start out on flake, then move onto pellets.
The other foods I generally stay away from because they are really messy, and hasslesome to prepare. And if your not comfortable, than can lead to problems.
Hope this helps..
Geoff