Do you feed your cichlids commercial foods that contain probiotics? Many of the larger market food brands (e.g., New Life Spectrum, Cobalt) and even some smaller ones (e.g., AquaLife) offer probiotic infused foods espousing the benefits to fish digestion.
I came across a recent study (October 2017) in the World Journal of Pharmaceutical Research that looked at the effects of probiotics on reproduction.