CichlidFish.com - Fish That Think.

Just to start i personally don't fed my oscars live food because of the risk of infection/parasites, but on other oscar sites people say live food is one of the best things to feed an oscar, espeacially if you load the live food on veg matter because oscars need veg matter to be fully healthy (I don't see how the veg will stay in a fish thats eating it, but anyway) But aboutfish not havin nutritional value.....I can't see that cos we eat fish and it's good for us isn't it????? Fish are loaded with protein.

Personaly I feed my oscars on cichlid colour enhancing pellets, koi pellets, blood worms(mostly), earthworms, catepillars and what ever else i can find in my garden, frogs etc.... Does anyone think feedin wild caught frogs is a prob??? Variety is the spice of life, must be pretty boring living in a tank so i try my best to make life interesting for my children.

I feed my oscars prawns as well but they dont really eat it they just mash it up and spit it out.....

One more thing my little oscar seems to eat 4X as much as my big fully gown oscar.....do growing oscars eat more than fully grown ones or what???

Thanks

Hi, Mewik.  There's really no last word on feeding.  Live foods are fun, both for the O's and for the owners, but there are enough high quality foods around that live foods aren't necessary.  I give mine live treats like the ones you describe from time to time -- they clearly enjoy it, but I depend on pellets as their staple diet.  Feeder minnows, goldfish, guppies, etc, are generally not well thought of for a couple of reasons.  First and foremost is the danger of introducing parasites like ich into your tank.  It happens, and if you aren't alert can easily cause casualties.  Nutritionally, most feeders are raised, shipped, and kept by your lfs in extremely overcrowded conditions, and are likely to be poorly nourished themselves.  Also, bear in mind that Oscars are omnivorous in the wild -- a surprisingly large part of their diet is plant-based. 

And yes, it takes more food to grow than it does to maintain.  I ate a lot more as a teen-ager than I do now, but my belt size nowadays keeps wanting to expand.