What to Feed Oscars

[Juannie]

Can anyone advise how much exactly to feed an oscar, mine is 1 1/2 yrs old and is getting rather large (that's him in my avatar). He begs a lot and I feed him about 6 lg pellets for breaky then a sq of bloodworm or similar at night. Any suggestions appreciated, so far I've just done it by guess work but i'd rather get it right because he's got HITH a very tiny spot and I want to get him as well as possible.

[kimmers318]

I don't believe there are any hard and fast rules about "how much" to feed any fish....you need to gauge it on how much the oscar will eat. If you are overfeeding it can lead to poor water quality as the food sits and rots. I have found that our oscars go thru phases where they will eat as much and as often as you can feed them, and then they will just slow way down and barely touch their food. If he/she is gobbling up everything you give right away you could probably try offering another daily meal or a little more.
I believe HITH can start due to poor water quality, or become worse if the water quality deteriorates, so you want to start taking steps now to help. What size tank is he/she in, what are your ammonia, nitrite and nitrate readings, how often and how do you do your tank and filter maintenance? I have also been told the HITH can come from feeding too many goldfish feeders...don't know how true that is, something about the type of protein contained in a goldfish if I can remember correctly. We haven't had any HITH issues with hubbies oscars, and since they are his I haven't done as much research as I probably should have, but I let him take care of them. I am sure there are others who may be able to steer you in the right direction.

[Fishguy2727]

For the first couple of years I fed my jaguar cichlid twice a day. I fed more than just 6 pellets, probably a lot more. He should take about 3-5 minutes to eat a whole meal. So if he is done in less than 3 minutes, give him more. And if he takes longer than 5 minutes, feed less next time and if there is anything left when he stops eating, remove it with a net.

HITH is very tricky and not as understood as it should be in my opinion. From what i have gathered HITH goes something like this: A parasite called Hexamita is present in all fish, or at least cichlids. Under adverse conditions (as in: low water quality, poor diet, etc.) the fish is under stress, and the Hexamita gets a stronger hold on the animal than usual, allowing it to spread and take over. The outward signs of Hexamita are in the form of Hole in the Head (HITH) or Head and Lateral Line Erosion (HLLE). Prevention is always the best treatment. For prevention: A high quality diet including Hikari Cichlid Bio-gold+ is important. I mention Hikari Cichlid Bio-gold+ specifically because it is the only fish food on the market that contains live beneficial bacteria. These Beneficial digestive bacteria actually out-compete the Hexamita for its niche in the digestive system, In addition Hikari Cichlid Bio-gold+ is a very high quality food, helping to prevent the poor diet issue. I would also highly encourage feeding New Life Spectrum (NLS). It is expensive, but worth it. Between the NLS and the Hikari food you should have no issues with diet. Important for the diet are foods that include an assortment of trace/micro nutrients. They should list off a lot of weird sounding names in the ingredients, many times including what the nutrient is with a common name. For example: D-activated animal sterol (vitamin D). The other half of prevention is water quality. This requires massive filtration and big frequent water changes. In general whatever a filter claims it can handle "up to", cut that in half and that is about what it can actually handle. Even firther, this is only for moderately stocked community type tanks in my opinion, so cichlid tanks will need even more filtration. My 14-15" jaguar cichlid is in a 75 with a Fluval 405 ("up to" 100 gallons), and two Whisper 60s ("up to" 60 gallons each). Water changes on big cichlid tanks need to be big and frequent. i keep all my tanks on this routine with a 75% water change every week. This will not harm your biological filtration at all, and it will only have benefits, if you or anyone is concerned about this water change schedule, I can go into further detail on it. This water change schedule will keep nitrates, phosphates, dissolved organic compounds, and many other harnful substances to a minimum, allowing for less stress on the fish and much higher water quality. Another likely contributor to HITH/HLLE is a lack of trace elements in the water. This can be considered as part of diet, but needs its own mentioning. Trace elements are important for any animal and without them you can end up with an assortment of problems. It is beleived that in this case it works like diet, not enough trace elements and the body doesnt function quite properly, leading to stress on the organism and its organ systems, allowing the Hexamita to get a start. There are a number of ways to help prevent and treat this issue. First is to do the large frequent water changes. This brings in a lot of trace elements into the system (tank). The second is to use available additives if appropriate for your fish. For example: If you have a Central American cichlid, use a 'salt' or trace element supplement made for Central American cichlids. And lastly it is important to keep the trace elements in the system. This means no carbon in the filters. The carbon doesn't care if you consider it good or bad, it will remove it. I have stopped using carbon in my 75 and so far there is no discoloration, odor, or other ill effects (I believe due to the large frquent water changes). If HITH/HLLE is already present, go by the guidelimes previously described and treat with Metronidazole. This medication kills the Hexamita. Hikari (under the label name 'Aquarium Solutions') now has Metro Plus. It is a new medication that you can use to soak food in, treat the whole tank, or use as a dip. It contains, and I believe may be the only fish medication that does so, metronidazole.

[Juannie]

Thanks for that info, I had no idea about all the trace elements and so on, they certainly never tell you much in a pet store or the facts are always different. The oscar is in a 4foot tank with a large pleco and I've just put my synspilum back in, she's the same size as him. He's a bit agro at the moment though so I've split the tank. I had my jag in there but he was attacking the oscar so I'm hoping the split tank will settle him down as he can still see her. I have a large Jebao 818 canister filter, has 5 stage filtration 1500l/hr and an internal power filter runs Max. 2400L/H, 28w, 1.6m water head with bio balls/foam. We had a problem over here with water recently which made a few of my goldies sick as well, I've been doing regular water changes, adding aquarium salts and siphoning waste from the sand every week. He/she is still feeding very very well and the hole hasn't grown. I will definitely get the higher quality pellets mentioned to see if that helps as well. Will leaving the carbon out of the filter affect the pleco or synspilum in anyway?
I really really appreciate your advice it's nice to find somewhere to get this info from people who actually have experience and know what they're talking about!

[kimmers318]

See...I knew someone would be able to give much more info on HITH....and it looks like you got it from Reptileguy. Hope all goes well and you soon see an improvement.

[Fishguy2727]

I like how it's all in metric except the length of the tank. I need to know actual tank size, not length. That length could literally be anything from 33 to 150 gallons. And for the filters, disregard Lph/gph because what is more important is what size tank the filter is rated for. I would get rid of the pleco, it will just cause more waste and they don't really eat much algae after about 5" or so. The lack of carbon won't actually affect any fish. In general carbon isn't really necessary except for removing harmful chemicals like medications. Many people preech not to use it at all, that it doesnt really help. I wouldn't go to that extreme, but I no longer consider it necessary.

[Juannie]

I like how it's all in metric except the length of the tank. I need to know actual tank size, not length. That length could literally be anything from 33 to 150 gallons. And for the filters, disregard Lph/gph because what is more important is what size tank the filter is rated for. I would get rid of the pleco, it will just cause more waste and they don't really eat much algae after about 5" or so. The lack of carbon won't actually affect any fish. In general carbon isn't really necessary except for removing harmful chemicals like medications. Many people preech not to use it at all, that it doesnt really help. I wouldn't go to that extreme, but I no longer consider it necessary.

Thanks Reptileguy your information is awesome - the external filter is rated for a 6 foot tank, mine is only 4 foot long. I'm kinda stuck with my pleco - there's just no way i could part with him because he's beautiful & I've had him a couple of years now. I guess the only other thing too do would be put another canister filter on & leave my internal one in there as well. I've finally located some of the Hikari Cichlid Bio-Gold + food you mentioned so have ordered that online (should be here next wk). I'm not sure how to work out gallons for a tank but I'll try and figure it out.

[Fishguy2727]

Do the filters come rated for a specific length? because that doesn't make sense. As I said, length can be variable and again, 4 feet can be anything from 33 to 150 gallons. Just give me the dimensions of the tank in inches, centimeters, whatever is easiest for you and I will figure out how big it is. What size tank did the filter say it could handle up to?