Home made food for an Oscar

[Matty6477]

hello everyone.

First of all I'm sorry if this thread is in the wrong place, was unsure where to put it.

Anyways, I'm looking at making some home made food for my Oscar.

Ingredients will most likely include stuff as : prawns/shrimp, some sort of white fish like tilapia, possibly something like scallops, as well as adding in veggies like romaine lettuce, carrots, peas, kale and possibly some liquid vitamins that seachem do. And then possibly gelatin to bind it together before freezing the mixture once it's been put into ice cube trays.

What I'm wondering, as the place where I'm going to get the seafood from do it either frozen, or defrosted on a fish counter.

Is it safer to get frozen, thaw it out, mix the ingredients together, bind it with gelatin then freeze the mix?

Or buy the defrosted fish from fish counter, prepare the mix when home, bind it with gelatin and then freeze it?

 

[davemal]

Why not just give prawns and other sea food as a treat, they will get a variety. Nice big earth worms are good to. Gelatine is animal fat ... cold blooded animals don't burn it too well so it might cause health problems.

 

[Matty6477]

I could always use agar as a binding agent, which is a vegan style gelatin made from algae I believe.

 

[dan518]

Here is a graph of the stomach content of wild oscars, the study was done in 2012 from 200+ oscars. Might give you more of an idea what to add to there diet.

 

[xraycer]

Its great that you want to do this, but it isn't necessarily more beneficial than a quality pellet brand such as NLS. I feed pellets 90% of the time, and then give various treats the other 10% of the time. Treats being worms, shrimp, veggies, berries, and insects (I catch during the warm seasons). You can make your own food, but that should be something more of a treat or a supplement, rather than a staple.
dan518 chart can be a little misleading. It makes sense that insects would be a the top of the list since it is plentiful and easy to catch. I'm certain the stomach content in those wild Oscars are a multitude of different types of insects not just one or 2. So, don't think that just buying store bought crickets and meal worms, and thinking it is nutritional adequate. Insects in the wild feed on many different things that benefits the predators that consumes it as well.

 

[RD.]

Totally agree with xraycer. To add to that, if you are looking to add plant matter, it's best if it is aquatic based plant matter, vs the various terrestrial based plant matter that you have listed. As an example, Peas contain phytic acid, tannins, and trypsin inhibitors (anti-nutritional matter), which are not something that fish benefit from and which can potentially cause negative health issues when fed in excess. Just because something is green, doesn't equate to it being healthy for a fish to eat.

IMO aquatic based plant matter always trumps terrestrial based plant matter. I posted about this in the past discussion linked to below.

https://www.monsterfishkeepers.com/forums/threads/fruit-veg-for-fish.690291/

 

[duanes]

I agree high grade pellets (infused with vitamins, and minerals) would be a more nutritionally sound choice.
The large tropical insects eaten in nature will contain lots of partially, and almost completely digested plant material from tropical fruits like figs and leaves, which may provide nutrients more easily available to the fish. More so, than locally accesssed crickets or meal worms fed on paper or oatmeal. And if given fish fillets, and shrimp meat, these are only a partial portion of what fish get when they eat the entire fish in nature, containing bones, organs, whats in the stomach and digestive tract.