View Full Version : How often...
...do you feed your oscars live fish as treats? Or do you at all?
TehTANK
06-06-2007, 05:30 PM
...do you feed your oscars live fish as treats? Or do you at all?
A lot of people here will tell you never to feed Oscars live fish. It increases their aggression levels and could introduce bad bacteria and sickness to your tank. Now what you can do though if you don't mind raising the aggression levels is have a separate feeder tank where you can quarantine the fish before feeding them to your Oscar. That is one way of doing it. IF you are just looking to feed your Oscars treats though outside of pellet food(New Life Spectrum is the best balanced food for them and will bring out the best color) I fed mine frozen blood worms. My Oscars loved them. You don't want to feed them treats very often though. I usually did it about once every 2 weeks.
Just my thoughts......
I actually will be raising the feeder fish myself. Should have specified.
TehTANK
06-06-2007, 05:34 PM
If you raise them yourself then, again I would space it out. Feeder fish do not give the right nutriants that a fish needs. feeder fish ar enot a balanced diet for Oscars. Again they will raise the aggression levels but if you are going to try to mate Oscars this by some experts is a must.
I guess I need to determine what the big tank will have in it to in turn determine how aggressive I want the oscars to get.
The idea is to do a 180 gallon tank this christmas. I know we want at least a few oscars, a pleco, not sure what else though.
TehTANK
06-06-2007, 05:43 PM
Personally I would say oscars are best as a species only tank. You could have 2 to 4 full grown Oscars in a 180 gallon tank. Plecos are good with Oscars but I would personally say that is about it. Just form my past experiences with Oscars.
Good information, much appreciated.
TehTANK
06-06-2007, 05:53 PM
My Pleasure and good luck! Keep us posted on what you get going!
...a 180? The O experts recommend 1 Oscar or 6...since few people have a tank big enough for 6...1 is best...
...you can try more than one, but then stick with two and be prepared to separate them if you end up with two that don't like each other...don't get 3...two will pick on the third...
The pleco is fine with the Oscars...but will be a huge waste producer...so make sure you take that into consideration...
...make sure you have double filtration...and you'll need to do large weekly water changes...
...an excellent treat for Oscars: crickets...if you can gut load them yourself, even better.
Gut load? Almost afraid to ask, but I must. What does that mean?
...and Rue, you don't think a pleco and 4 oscars with dual Fluval FX5s would be okay?
Gut load: to provide the crickets with an excellent diet so that they in turn provide the best nutrition for your fish (or turtle, or lizard...)...
I don't know for sure...but I'll go see if the Oscar boys have any major words of wisdom...
...I want to know if I'm ballpark or out to lunch! :c5:
Out to the ballpark or out to lunch. LOL!
That's why I'm doing so much research now, 6 months in advance of the purchase of the tank. This is a HUGE investment and I need to make sure I am doing the right thing. Thanks for the help, to you and to TEHtank.
Here's the link to the thread. You can check up yourself this way. Or go ahead and join if you like...just watch out! Some of the members are not quite as nice as we are! :hmm3grin2orange: Imagine that!
http://www.oscarfish.com/discussion/4-oscars-and-a-pleco-in-a-180-vt68941.html?highlight=
Think I'll just take your advice and avoid the not-so-nice members. I fished around (pun intended) in hopes of finding a forum like this one for years. Don't want to take backward steps.
Really appreciate the info, thanks so much. I'll take this info to my wife, maybe we'll change our stocking plans.
Kristi1
06-07-2007, 11:11 PM
I've had Oscar's since my parents started me on them back in the early 1960s. We would only feed them meal worms, and other Oscar food in pellet form. We only feed them live fish once in awhile.
Have a Great time with your Oscar's They are truly wonderful Pets! Mine in the past would let me pet them. :1luvu:
fishntrips
06-09-2007, 04:16 AM
hello everybody. i have a female oscar.... Lucy. she is about 2yrs old. my question is that i have been told by several sources that oscars will not stop growing to the size of the tank. You guys seem to know your stuff, so is this true??? Lucy is in a 70ltr tank with nothing but gravel. she occupies her day with moving the gravel around.
Your tank is about 18-19 gallons and you have an oscar. BAD idea. You need at least a 55 gallon tank for a single oscar. Your fish is in a very bad situation. Strongly recommended that you get a bigger tank. And yes, we do know our stuff.
NWMountainTroll
06-14-2007, 02:38 AM
In the wild oscars' diet consists of 90% live fish or insects. Feeding a combination of gutloaded feeder fish, crickets, peas, and pellet food will be plenty healthy for your oscar. I would even venture far enough to say that feeding a feeder fish every couple of days is a good idea... In a perfect world.
Feeder fish just carry too much risk of disease. It would be a better idea to feed him fresh seafood like bits of fish and crab and whole shrimp.
...waxworms and mealworms too!!!...
Gawd_oOo
07-09-2007, 02:55 AM
...a 180? The O experts recommend 1 Oscar or 6...since few people have a tank big enough for 6...1 is best...
...you can try more than one, but then stick with two and be prepared to separate them if you end up with two that don't like each other...don't get 3...two will pick on the third...
The pleco is fine with the Oscars...but will be a huge waste producer...so make sure you take that into consideration...
...make sure you have double filtration...and you'll need to do large weekly water changes...
Just remember that the Oscars don't listen to the experts, nor do they read the boards.
Years back I had 3 living happily together in 110g tank 2 were 9" the 3rd was 6". They were all about 2" when purchased. Couldn't afford a bigger tank for them at the time so I donated them to a local zoo. They didn't bother the pleco that I would move back and forth from that tank to another.
Gawd, take note of the dates of the threads in the upper left corner. The last post to this thread was almost a month ago. Not a big deal, I learned that the hard way, too.
Gawd_oOo
07-10-2007, 02:33 AM
Oh sure enough.. It was only a few posts down on the board. Didn't even look.
I only alert new people to that because sometimes we add a question of our own in these ongoing threads. Most people who originally contributed comments to the thread have long since unsubscribed from it and so don't respond to said questions, which can be discouraging.
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