Feeder fish to oscars?
- Thread starter biggs48
- Start date
Very Rarely. Live feeder fish that you buy in petstores can carry diseases. Also if you feed to much of feeders the oscars can get hole in head disease (AKA HITH). Feed cichlid pellets and frozen foods, if you want the thrill of watching him eat live fish do it once a month or less. Another item oscars love are earth worms.
I find its easyer if you don't buy fish labeled feeder rather buy normal fish like danios or WCMM. I belive you must feed your oscars feeder fish at least once a month to keep them fit and happy.
Feeder fish should be a treat. Crickets, earthworms, and mealworms can be added as part of their weekly diet.
Oscars do need to each fish as this is what they do in nature. This said though I would not feed them the "feeder fish" that are typically sold at pet stores. Being in the business before and getting deliveries of feeders for certain customers that insisted on it, even though I would try to discourage them from doing this, I've seen too many bad batches of these feeders to recommend them to anyone. The best way to feed any kind of cichlid live fish is to raise your own. Actually I believe the best fish to feed cichlids is wild guppies. You can start off with several pairs and you will always have a good supply of protein for your cichlids. Oscars love em and its interesting to watch them chasing their food. I've had great success with wild guppies. No diseases and I have yet to have any kind of cichlid refuse them.
In the wild, they don't just eat fish. They eat bugs, frogs, and whatever other prey animal that swims past them.
AKA varied diet.
I personally don't like the idea of feeding live fish. they don't really need it if you consider they get a good healthy diet.
there is the use of earthworms etc..but being many of the oscars we now see are tank raised.
keep in mind that there is the risk of parasites in feeder fish..which should be qt'd as any other fish.
I would think that mealworms , earthworms etc would make a better choice.