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Honest Abe

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Feb 20, 2006
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Sheboygan, Wisconsin
How important is it to get my fish off of the lve food diet? Every body is tellin me I should but not really givin me a reason I rather enjoy watchin my oscars feed. Also what do I switch them to if it is heal :screwy: thier
 
I have never heard you should not live feed oscars...that's the fun of having them. You could supplement their diet with other stuff if they will take it.
 
depends what you are feeding live. constant feeders is not a good idea. they contain anti vitamins and your fish wont live as long. also, the feeders can carry diseases.
 
paOol said:
depends what you are feeding live. constant feeders is not a good idea. they contain anti vitamins and your fish wont live as long. also, the feeders can carry diseases.

I agree with that. Feeders don't have the necesary nutrition. You should supplement if you can.
 
paOol said:
depends what you are feeding live. constant feeders is not a good idea. they contain anti vitamins and your fish wont live as long. also, the feeders can carry diseases.




yup
 
honestly, people just tell you this because feeders from anywhere have been exposed to everything. I dont know much but I do know if you love your oscars you dont want to intentionally give them internal parasites. Oh yeah , also, feeders are not enough for any fish (nutritionally). They will need alot of variety, when small oscars will accept flakes and small cichlid pellets (and small fish, ect. BABY FOODS!!!) when larger they will eat anything, algae wafers, krill, baby shrimp, crab, brine shrimp, live, frozen, freaze dried anything,, shrimp pellets, Flakes with spirulina...

Somewhere on this site you can find out better nutrional info for your fish, Im just here to say feeders are not enough,,,

But if you do want to feed live fish every so often,

Go to your lfs, and find the best, healthiest looking livebearers/guppies, mollies, platies, endlers or swordtails, theres more but they are not that common.
put them in there very own (cycled) tank, or use the oscars water and filter media mixed with new treated water.
buy 10 female and 2 males= alot of babies- if the parent fish survive, it took me alot to get any to survive from the place I got mine from.
Watch these fish for weeks, some will die, you MIGHT have to medicate these new fish.
when you are positive there are no signs of flashing, fin rot, gasping ect. then begin feeding the grown out fry to your fish.

to help you along ,, you will need a fry grow out tank( 5.5gallon will do)with a sponge filter or something similar,, or the parent fish will eat there fry faster than your oscar ever could.
buy alot of FAKE plants and just float them in the water, check the plants every day for baby fish. have lots of plants on the bottom to and going from top to bottom.
fry also hide in the gravel, look closely,, this is annoying , I know but is sooo neccessary to keep your fishies safe,



also , when you get the livebearers, the females will be having fry from the pet store males
every 2-3 weeks five or six times. So quarintine these babies to... or you could just buy those poor feeders who have anchor worm and tb. and try to treat them but this is just not good enough for me.. It takes a long time before you get the results of all this but I say its worth it for my little guys, besides I like livebearers to :)

sorry bout the long boring posts,, just trying to help!!!
 
you can get an oscar to grow a lot faster if you feen prepared foods more than feeders.
I dont say stop feeding feeders, but use feeders less often than prep. foods.
Also as stated before give them some veggies. Spirolina and peas work well.
 
some company i don't remember which one make a frozen cichlid chow
 
I have a needle nose gar that will only eat live,, but his feeders get gut loaded( there whole life=very healthy feeders) and he will also eat gutloaded crickets and tadpoles.... and moray eels are kinda hard to feed to, at first....

Dont believe that petco and petsmart gutload any of there feeders(crickets, mice, goldfish and minnows)
,,, because they do not.....
 
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