CichlidFish.com - Fish That Think.

I just bought a small tank where i keep fish to feed my oscar. so far i've only fed him little comets, and he's only 4", but what are the best fish for him.

ive fed my fish, betas, gouramis, insects:crickets,spiders,flies,

i think the best feeders are Tuffies.....

thanks, i'll see what i can do about getting some.

Anybody bred mollies,platys guppies, convicts etc.. to feed their oscars?

------------------
Joe
www.cichlidfish.com

You can breed guppies or platies for oscars, but the problem is they grow very slowly. By the time they get large enough to even serve as an appetiser, you could have hundreds. You would need more feeder tanks than oscar tanks. My paties and guppies would have from 15-50 babies at a time, but it took about 6 mos to grow big enough for an adult oscar to eat. Platies grow larger than guppies and faster, but still very slowly. They also breed about once every 4 weeks...at 50 babies a pop... Oh, you have to seperate the parents from the babies, and the small babies from the large ones. They eat each other. You may have a batch of babies and not even know it because the parents eat the babies as fast as the babies are born sometimes.

Oscars are much more civilized!!

Jen

------------------

Jen

I have bred mollies.. Repunz is right. Mollies are the same way as well. By the time they have their babies they are eaten already unless you catch it in time. Man do they have babies tho!!

So anyone got some ingenious way to "automatically" save those babies? will they run from the parents or are they stupid and swim right into their mouth ? ie if you put some kind of grating so the parents can't go through it and the fry could be safe behind it....

------------------
Joe
www.cichlidfish.com

I use to have to just keep a close eye on them and scoop out the babies place them into a bowl and feed them till they became bigger.

They make really versitile breeding equipment for small fish. I've had breeding nets, and breeding cages. They serve as a breeding place (forces the male and female together), birthing place (has a grate which the babies fall through) and growing place (albeit small, there's room to keep those little buggers from getting eaten).

When the female becomes fat place her in breeding cage, preferrably with the grate in. Once she gives birth (live babies) take her out immediately because those stupid little babies will swim right in front of her.

Guppies, Mollies, and Platies carry (are pregnant) for about 4 weeks so if you know when they bred you can judge when the babies will come. They can also give birth 3-4 times with just one mating. They store the excess sperm in a seperate sac and can refertilize themselves.
Once I had bought a pregnant female who continued to have babies for 4 mos with no male around!!

Ultimately you'll need a seperate tank for the babies to really grow in bacause they grow REALLY slowly in those breeding cages. If you invest in a breeding net, which are actually cheaper and larger, you can put one in your adult tank and the babies have a bit more room to grow.

(I had guppies, mollies, and platies before I got Jack)

If you are going to breed them for feeders you won't need to worry about inbreeding. Let them little suckers go nuts!! You will need to have a fairly large tank however, to accomodate all those breeding nets and cages and babies and adults....

Personally, I'd rather buy goldfish feeders. They are tons less work and you don't get a chance to get attached to them as they grow!! But if this is your choice, good luck and I hope this info helped!


------------------

Jen

Hi Jen,

Thanks for all the info. I might go for it sometime not right now though, like you said it's much easier to buy goldfish for now....but it does get expensive I don't think I could get to fond of fish that don't pay attention to me yep it's all about ME, if they don't follow me around, beg me for food, jump out of the tank for me, well then they're chowder for my devils.....

------------------
Joe
www.cichlidfish.com

I have to say that I think its wrong to feed Oscars convicts, they are related....isn't there some fish ethics involved here...LOL!

Originally posted by cichlidfish:
Anybody bred mollies,platys guppies, convicts etc.. to feed their oscars?

I feed my Oscars rosey reds but i breed or grow brime shrimp and by nightcrawlers from bait shops and ANYTHING that I can catch around the house and those really cheap crickets
Then they can act like Jaws with swimmers in the water

The only reason I bought Convicts was to breed and feed my oscars, but I got too attached to the little convict beggars, coudn't get myself to feed them to my oscar monsters.....I don't have as much compassion on my red devil fry, since they're monsters themselves

------------------
Joe
www.cichlidfish.com