Feeding an oscar

[kdrun76]

I am new (ish) to ownign an oscar. I have had this one for about 5 months. He was about 10" when I got him. I named him "PigPen" from the Peanuts cartoon as that is what he looks like when eating. He can make a clean tank look gross with 3 pellets. They go in the end they are expected to, but then get ground into dust and spit back out through the gill plates.

He eats arowana sticks, and any of about 4 types of cichlid pellets. He also takes algae wafers and omnivore wafers away from the pacu's he lives with. Everything that goes in his mouth comes out his gill plates ground into mush.

I swear he can't possibly be getting one calorie of food out of what goes in his mouth.

He does eat chopped bits of fish with out spewing them all over the tank, but can't these things be fed commercially prepared pellets? I also have guppies in there for him to eat, but he hasn't read the memo with those instructions on it yet.... They are now breeding up a storm in the wrong tank!

 

[Citrinellus]

I am new (ish) to ownign an oscar. I have had this one for about 5 months. He was about 10" when I got him. I named him "PigPen" from the Peanuts cartoon as that is what he looks like when eating. He can make a clean tank look gross with 3 pellets. They go in the end they are expected to, but then get ground into dust and spit back out through the gill plates.

He eats arowana sticks, and any of about 4 types of cichlid pellets. He also takes algae wafers and omnivore wafers away from the pacu's he lives with. Everything that goes in his mouth comes out his gill plates ground into mush.

I swear he can't possibly be getting one calorie of food out of what goes in his mouth.

He does eat chopped bits of fish with out spewing them all over the tank, but can't these things be fed commercially prepared pellets? I also have guppies in there for him to eat, but he hasn't read the memo with those instructions on it yet.... They are now breeding up a storm in the wrong tank!

You think you could be over feeding him? As soon as I see a bulge in the stomach I stop feeding.

 

[kdrun76]

He gets about 5 pellets or sticks (this morning it was Hikari Cichlid gold) in the morning along with what ever he steals from the Pacu's in the mornings. On occasion he also gets some pellets in the evening.

2 days a week of fasting and one day a week of raw fish.

For a 10" fish that doesn't seem like much food. I know why he steals from the Pacu's.

I put 8-10 guppies in a week (I breed them for that purpose) but I doubt he eats more than 1 or 2 a week. There are at least 20 in the tank now, but the guppy tank is so full I have to keep moving them over.

 

[Cichlaholics Anonymous]

oscars do tend to do that a lot, adds to the reputation as messy fish

 

[poly-nomial]

Earthworms
Freeze dried bloodworms
frozen bloodworms
krill
crickets
all large fish hikari

If the previous owner fed them something particular, at 10" chances are he's not going back, try to get in touch with the previous owner and ask about it.

 

[Pomatomus]

My oscar always eats like this. In fact, when I feed it pellets my Mayan cichlid sits beneath her and waits for the bits to fly out of her gills. Oscars are pigs and they will eat anything. They will always be the most interested as well!

I feed my cichlids about 30 mosquitofish at a time and I'd say my oscar usually gets between 15 and 20 of them...and that's after pellets. She is also the only one that doesn't get full and lose interest.

My roommates also throw in food for her from time to time.

And she jumps out of the tank (more than her body length, 8") to grab shrimp, and sometimes my pinkie finger.