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Although not strictly cichlids (i think), i have recently bought 2 Badis badis, i know it is difficult to get them to feed as they can be very picky of what they eat,they both seem very happy and i have seen one definitely pick at some frozen tubufex worms, however does anyone know a food that they will love and thrive on? Many thanks

Well, yeah, they're not cichlids at all, but mine were really happy when I got some ghost shrimp... they were hunting around the tank, after a week the 8 shrimp I got were all gone. And the badis were fatter afterward.

Also, the larger one enjoyed frozen brine shrimp that I propelled with a turkey baster... they really like their food moving (however, I don't think the smaller one got much of those because she was hiding while I was feeding)

EDIT: They really like guppy fry too. But don't tell my mom I've been feeding "hers" (they're in my tank) to them

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You could easily raise your own live brineshrimp, you could try that, and theres a whole selection of worms you could raise in the home, microworms, grindals. Im pretty sure they will take microcrickets off the water surface too. Tubifex will be a favourite, but theyd probably have to be live and as such represent a significant disease risk.Frozen bloodworm usually float around in a way that this small species should find acceptable, but flakes and pellets arent taken by most of them, although a few do, so its worth trying occassionally. They should take daphnia and cyclops too. Badis eat primarily tiny crustaceans in the wild , and cyclops are a reasonable substitute.

Badis are most closely related to anabantids incidentally,despite looking superficially rather like cichlids, and having a similar temperament to the less pleasant species, and are often thought to be a subspecies of nandid, which makes them biologically at least , if not morpholocically similar to certain leaf fish, and certainly some of them share dietary preferences. Some people think they should be reclassified and placed in with the dario species. ( note thats dario not danio)