Oscar Diet

[underwunder]

So - I have a booming colony of tropical roaches that I breed for my collection of tarantulas, B. dubia for those interested. ***Looks in both directions cautiously & continues*** The males mature a little smaller than a human finger and if there are too many of them they'll stress the females (ratio of 1-3 is best). I cull them first and they are waaaay more than enough for my T's. At the rate these puppies breed I now have a 10 gallon loaded with extra males that I have to pull from the colony routinely.

So what's this got to do with O's? My new 6"er loves them (only eating medium roaches now) - and won't eat anything else... My question is - if I gut load the roaches on veggies, could this be an acceptable staple diet for an oscar? B. dubia is known as one of the best feeder insects there is. Heaven knows I have plenty & it would be a great (cheap) foodsource. Anybody know? I can give it a shot & let you know how he develops as an experiment, but I wanted to gather some opinions first.

 

[underwunder]

Anybody?

 

[mbunafishkeeper]

well, obviously if the roaches have a better diet, the better they will be for the oscar, now i dont think its good feeding them live food or, other fish all the time, because obviously a varied diet is better for them.

now, if you want advide on how to get your O to take pellets, i would starve the fish and after about 4 days he should start taking pellets although it can take a bit longer some times.

its ok to feed them live food as a treat occasionally, but feeding them it all the time is not good.

i do think tho that feeding the roaches a better diet would help the oscar have a better diet.

 

[underwunder]

its ok to feed them live food as a treat occasionally, but feeding them it all the time is not good.

If an appropriate gut-loaded live food were available, why not? Many of the same ingredients in fish food - only fresh! We're not talking fatty foul goldfish here; these are nice crunchy bugs with heavy shells of deep red/black and a bellyfull of greenstuff.

I have a smaller O in the same tank who eats pellets happily. Since I can spot-feed the larger one her roaches (and she doesn't share) it will be an experiment I guess. I'll try to get pics of each this weekend & post their development to this thread.

Thanks .