Oscar spits out more than he eats?

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L

Libpete

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Apr 8, 2013
160
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England
Here is my oscar with his pleco and featherfin catfish buddies. He does bite the pleco but it has no effect whatsoever and the pleco ignores him.

Ive brought some freeze dried crickets for the oscar which he seems to love, but he crunches them into pieces and spits loads out again. He does it with pellets too. Is this common behaviour? My pleco and featherfin dont mind though.

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Also, do you think this 240L tank which is about 60'ish US gallons, will be okay for these three fish for the next few years? The pleco hasnt seemed to grow for ages now. It has a 1000lph internal filter and I have a eheim echo external normally running on it too but I havent set it up since I moved house last week.

Its normally filled to the top with water but its upstairs and im just seeing how things go..

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Mine does that too, and its only about 8cm.
Sometimes it eats a algae tab and it just explodes out of its mouth/gills.

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If that's around 60 ish US gallons then no it won't last a few years. You got a year at best depending on foot print. Oscars are messy eater so spitting out excess food is normal. You could try a smaller pellet so he won't do it with pellets. Oscars need a minimum of 48x18 inches for one by itself not counting tank mates.


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Try a smaller pellet or freeze dried cube. Also make sure not to overfeed as they will just make a mess & not eat the food. Oscars are messy as they come make no doubt about it, but try to get a pellet/cube it can swallow whole. 60ish gallons is adequate for one 12" oscar any bigger I would recommend a 75gal. Your fish look nice, but imho your tank is over stocked especially with the pleco. I would recommend you change 50-75% of the water 2x a week atm & be looking for something in the 100+gal range.
 
I have this same problem. My Oscar is 10 months old and 7-8 inches(17.8cm-20.3cm) his belly NEVER even comes close to that full look anymore. And my understanding of oscars was that theyre supposed to be around 13-14 inches (33cm-35.5cm). I got him at 3 inches so hes obviously grown, but I always wonder if hed be bigger if I could just find something he likes enough to never blow out his gills

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Could be a sign of illness. What are your water parameters like? With those three fish, they will be producing a lot of waste. Oscars will naturally make a lot of mess, but they should still eat more food than comes out of their gills or mouths.
 
Try giving him earth worms a few times a week. That will help with the bio load of wasted food. I agree with the above statements that tank is to small. The pleco puts out a huge amount of waste. What is your water change schedule? What are your nitrates at?


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Tank is to small, i would feed the Oscar smaller pellets and one at a time. wait for him to get it down before another. They will stuff there mouths and spit out through there gills or spit out what they just took in to grab another. do you re-hydrate the crickets before feeding them? I re-hydrate my freeze dried food over night in vita-chem.
 
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