Taking an educated quess on my oscar

[LGK]

hey guys,

just curious what sex would you say my oscar is?

And if you have any information for the cheapest feeding method, doing the guppies method but cant keep up for my oscar and my mangrove jack.

if any one could help or has any ideas it would be muchly appreciated.

cheers

 

[woofy]

Impossible to tell sex by looking at it. As far as food you mean cheapest live food? Breeding convicts also might help. But really a staple pellet is better in the long run.


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[mattstevens1]

Hard for me personally to tell from the picture what sex it is but I feed my Oscar all types of things. Crickets,tilapia, shrimp, freeze dried kryll, floating pellets (NLS And Hikari), he will basically eat anything I throw in the tank.


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[fwprawn]

There is no educated guess in sexing oscars, until they drop their breeding tube.

Cheap way to feed ? Buy lots of bulk pellets - mix up the types for variety - or if you are "poor" - go catch your own food.

 

[LGK]

Thought that this might be the case, yeah was feeding my oscar pellets, but after a while he wont eat em at all,

regulary i come home and the gravel in the tank is pushed to the sides of the tank, for a while i thought he was

stressed and trying to get out, but after later observation he uses his tail to sweep the gravel bed and alivate any

left over food, is this common?


thanks for the posts

 

[LGK]

can you elaborate on the breeding tube please

 

[rusty2012]

i used to switch between cichlid gold feeders nightcrawlers redworms mixin it up seemed to keep them from getting stuck on one thing

 

[duanes]

A male breeding tube is narrow (wide enough for sperm/milt)), a females is thick (in order to accommodate the size of eggs). The tubes only drop just before spawning.
Feeder guppies (or goldfish) unless you breed them yourself, can harbor parasites that can kill your oscar, and are often nutritionally deficient and it only takes 1 to ruin your oscars day. This is a reason why many people are advising to use pellets, along with their superior nutritional value

 

[woofy]

A breeding tube is the external sex organ that shows a fish's sex. It looks different for male and female fish. The boys will have a long narrower pointier tube while girls have a wide rounded tipped fan shaped tube which is used to deposit eggs. On oscars in particular it isnt until they are spawning that they drop their tubes (see pic below for location). So unless you have a picture of this its hard to say what sex your oscar is.

As for the behavior your seeing this is common with cichlids, theyre digging for building a territory. Although if there are other fish in the tank and your oscar is a female there is a good chance its trying to build a nest which most female cichlids will do with or without a mate. She may even lay eggs. How old is the oscar? Size?

As far as feeding, some oscars are butts and get "bored" of pellets. But usually if hungry enough even without eating for a few days he should go back to pellets. Or its grown a custom to eating live and doesnt want to bother with pellets. Try a different brand of pellet. Try a variety of frozen or other live foods that arent fish. My fish love red wiggler worms as a treat. those are like 50-100 for $3-$5 and unlike meal worms they dont turn into beetles. Yuck lol


Pic

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[fwprawn]

The "pit digging" is basically his making a home, or redecorating - normal behavior all the way.