Shy Oscars
- Thread starter jlsmonkey
- Start date
jlsmonkey;3302595; said:
ok so so far you have good lighting, background noise is fine, and tapping to a minimum. but your gonna have to clarify "feeders" because by definition that is any fish that is fed to another fish.
are they comets? because comets = goldfish. and by no means can you tell if the feeders are good by how they look on the outside. parasites are internal, and by the sounds of it your oscars could have some parasites sucking their blood/nutrients inside their body and bogging them down.
and its not relevant but you should be feeding more than just one kind of fish and pellets for your oscars to be healthy. in the wild they eat many different kinds of fish, shrimp, fruits, insects, and amphibians. and you said you feed the "feeders" more than pellets so their nutrient levels can't be too awesome. especially store bought feeders, the laziness and neglect runs off onto the fish and their nutrients are pretty much worthless.
ADD: i read ur comment about the store feeders. you can never guarantee the quality of a feeder fish from any store. no matter how many are in the tank at the time you see them or how well they tell you its being cared for. if your oscars are lethargic then thats enough evidence to bonk those claims
By feeders I mean Rosies, small fish that look like goldfish they are either orange or silver. I meant by how they swim around and if they have Ich. How can I get rid of the parasites in case they have them, how can I tell if they are infected by a parasite? Also, they prefer either live fish or sinking pellets, that's why I had trouble with the Hikari brand I got, they floated so my Oscars would hardly ever eat them. I tried only putting only 3 or so in at a time and got the same results so I knew it wasn't overfeeding. I'll look for some very tiny frogs or tadpoles if I can find them. How would I get shrimp the correct size for them to be nutritional to them without the shrimp being to big without breeding, do most LFS sell small shrimp? I fed them a worm once which I found to be somewhat cool, no clue why. What kinds of fruit should be fed to them and in what ammounts? I'll try to give them equally feeders and pellets untill I get other foods. I will get a thermometer and tune the temp to the right degree.
sorry for another post but just curious, how do you feed the feeders to your oscar? straight from the bag? i know people who dump the whole thing in, store water and all.
the best thing you could do for your oscars is pull out your old 20 gallon tank, set it up. and use it as a quarantine/ holding cell for your feeders. learn about breeding tetras, invest in maybe 3 or 4 different kinds of tetras and breed them all in your 20 gallon tank. it will be more expensive in the beginning but eventually be cheaper once you figure out your spending too much on feeders anyway.
tetras come from the south america just like oscars and you will be breeding MUCH MUCH higher quality feeders by yourself than any store can offer.
the best thing you could do for your oscars is pull out your old 20 gallon tank, set it up. and use it as a quarantine/ holding cell for your feeders. learn about breeding tetras, invest in maybe 3 or 4 different kinds of tetras and breed them all in your 20 gallon tank. it will be more expensive in the beginning but eventually be cheaper once you figure out your spending too much on feeders anyway.
tetras come from the south america just like oscars and you will be breeding MUCH MUCH higher quality feeders by yourself than any store can offer.
I'll start breeding when my mom starts listening to me, maybe tomorrow after I finish driving, drivers ed rocks.
What kind of tetras do you suggest?
What kind of tetras do you suggest?
I wouldn't recommend egg scattering fish like tetras. You would also need a spawning mop, another tank for the fry, then baby brine shrimp. Just invest in a pair of convict cichlids. It'll probably cost $4-5 for a pair. Males are larger, females are smaller and have orange/redish color on their stomach. They'll lay eggs every week they'll raise em. Feed finely crushed flake to the babies. The parents will continue to care for them until they're next spawn. Then if you could invest in another tank just to keep the babies in to grow just until your feed. I strongly suggest you get your oscars onto a pelleted diet as a staple.
jlsmonkey;3302696; said:
Rosies are a type of minnow ie. same as goldfish
. do not buy them anymore. that makes everything clear. you cannot tell if a feeder has a parasite unless its anchor worms or another external parasite. but with internal parasites the fish will appear fine and then die all of a sudden. white poop and bleeding are a few signs but there aren't always symptoms.with that said you can't always tell if your fish are infected and so refer to my other post with my suggestion of what to do. you can also refer to the parasite sticky on this website for how to get rid of them.
your oscars probably never ate the floating pellet because they can't spot 3 as easily as say 40 pellets in the water. lol
i told you what they eat in the wild. but i wouldn't advise you catch wild tadpoles and frogs as you will get the same risks as feeding any wild animal to a captive one which is parasites.
they should sell shrimp at petstores most of the time. just use your gut feeling whether the oscar can eat it or not. if its small enough etc.
i'll give you a small list of what you can feed them. included but not limited to:
crickets
mealworms
mealworm bettles
small tetras
guppies (swordtails etc)
baby convicts
ghost shrimp
wax worms
tubifex worms... things along that line for live foods.
never feed: rosy reds aka any minnows, goldfish, koi, aka comets, or anything along those lines.
as far as fruit goes you can use just about any fruit but it all depends on whether the oscar likes it or not. you can try berries/cherries too.
pellets are pellets. select maybe 2 or 3 brands and your fine. they are well-rounded "feed all" and for the most part it won't really matter. its just a sub-par way to allow your fish to get by with fair nutrition.
That's a great idea, Convicts do look pretty cool and they seem easy enough to sex. My 20g needs cleaning and I like my equipment running for a while before adding anything so I will check back here tomorrow, see how you all are behaving and see if there are any other helpful hints.
Thanks greatly appreciated, love you long time!
Thanks greatly appreciated, love you long time!
Midas Madness;3302769; said:
tetras are fine. i needed no such equipment, just a good amount of artificial moss at the bottom for fry to hide in and a few artificial plants to lay eggs on. all i do is feed them and they bred themselves.
convicts are fine too as far as ease of breeding goes, but i don't suggest that anybody feeds only one kind of fish. with tetras you can have many different species to feed your oscars. fish need variety and over all the cons will be more expensive. you pay 3$ for each of them, then you gotta buy a seperate tank for fry and it takes alot more food to feed convicts than it does to feed tetras which will add to expense in the long run.
if you choose to feed live, you need a wide variety and unless you have 4 other tanks at your disposal, i don't recommend convicts as you need to dedicate 2 separate tanks to just breeding convicts AND if you buy only 1 pair that means inbreeding which will further dull the quality of your feeder.
again, variety is key.
ADD: google tetras for easy breeding and compare the 3 or 4 easiest ones and buy them all to breed. actually most tetras are easy to breed aside from piranhas, pacu, payara, and exodons.. but most any other small tetra have around the same needs and breed easily. when i chose tetras to breed i merely got the ones that looked cool ie: black skirt tetras, white skirt tetras (same species, different morph), and some other ones that look piranha-ish i forgot the names though. they all bred just fine. of course the wait kills you. even with convicts i remember waiting and waiting.
