Switchin pellet brands

  • We are currently upgrading MFK. thanks! -neo
J

jbnebres

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Jul 3, 2008
391
0
0
NE of Asian Arowana F
Hello everyone.
I have an Oscar that has been fed Tetracichlid brand since young.. I made the choice of going with Hikari recently(a local lfs had them fairly cheap) but made the mistake of buying Hikari's cichlid Staple rather than "cichlid Gold".
My baby green terrors(1.5") readily accept it, but my large Oscar refuses them, even when i do the old switch-a-roo when feeding. At first he ate them, but grew to realized they were not his regular pellets.
So what to do when your fish refuses to convert with the new pellets?
I am afraid if I stop feeding and starve him for a couple days- he'd go after the small GTs.

Any suggestions are welcome and appreciated.
 
Oscars are picking eaters sometimes. You may have to starve it a little, how big is the O? If it can fit the GT's in its mouth its only a matter of time before some get eaten anyway. Even if you keep it well fed eventually it will go after them. I had a O with some common plecos for awhile and weeks could go by then all of the sudden there would be 1 missing, then a 2nd then they all would be gone.

I switched my O's diet up too, thats really big with them so they dont become picky. I fed Cichlid complete and bio gold for pellets, and then varied it with meats, shrimp, veggies (which never went over big) and even hot dogs. This prevents them becoming really picky. It also promots really good growth! They grow like weeds.

I didnt dare to keep anything with mine though that looked even close to like it could fit in its mouth. Even things it cant eat in one shot it will go after! They loved Bio-Gold though, I think it was their favorite thing to eat, really helped with colors too.
 
yeah- the oscar is getting big now. a iil over 9 inches.
I've had him with a lepidota, grown as young(2.5) to 7 inches, baby dempseys. at the time they were in the tank with the Oscar, I had rosy feeders as well. I've never had him actually eat his lil tank mates, but I was always worried if they would be missing the next day. I just tried to keep him fed and plenty of hiding spots for the tiny ones.

I'm going to try to starve him for a couple days and see how that goes. I guess a lil part of me is thinking (i dont know why) that Hikari gold would have been a better choice than CichlidStaple. Maybe he would have acted the same way as well, who knows.
I will try to vary his diet more often- see if that keeps him from being picky.
Thanks for the feedback.:D
 
When i switched my texas over from aquarian shrimp pellets to Hikari sinking cichlid pellet, he refused to eat them, he would take them then spit them out, but after 2 days of him not eating he's eating them like a champ!
 
I'm glad to hear your texas got acclimated to the pellets. Shrimp must've started to get expensive :eek:
 
jbnebres;2028922; said:
I'm glad to hear your texas got acclimated to the pellets. Shrimp must've started to get expensive :eek:
Click to expand...

Shrimp pellets lol.

But on a side note he does get frozen shrimp just about every other day :ROFL:
 
lol. i dont know where my head was when i wrote that.:D
 
the switch to hikari staple was successful.:D

some blurry pics of oscar.
picture.php

picture.php

picture.php
 
Nice. Oscars seem to eat anything though, one time i accidentally got a plastic airsoft pellet in the tank (ricochet scenario from screwing around with one of them) and the old Oscar ate it.....then a couple weeks later and jumped out of the tank during a water change and kinda killed himself.

That wasn't the smartest Oscar.....
 
lol "kinda killed himself". assisted bullet suicide without a gun.

oh and no GTs got killed.:headbang2
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
MonsterFishKeepers.com
Top Bottom