Why are my oscars so picky?

[Mad Hatter]

I have gone thru 3 different brands of cichlid pellet (two of them saying there were specifically for oscars) and have tried blood worms and brine shrimp. My oscars will devour them one day then suck them in there mouths and spit them out the next. Its starting to tick me off, even my goldfish which normally will eat anything won't eat the pellets so now I have wasted all this money on food that they like one day and hate the next. They're both juveniles about 2" long, one red tiger and one albino. I know they're hungry cause they pounce on the food right away, but then once they get a taste of it they just kinda say "no thanks, what else ya got." I tried feeding them one kind one day and another the next but it doesn't seem to matter. And they don't seem to like food that floats at the surface. Any suggestions?

[craftyflalady]

Your not alone! I have also spent a small fortune on Cichlid pellets, just to have rejected by the fish themselfs! Sooo..I now just buy quaility flake in bulk to feed the picky eatters here.

I don't own Oscars, but have heard once they grow up they will eat just about anything you throw into thier tank. So maybe when they get older they will appreciate them!

Kathy

[redpaulhus]

Try fasting them for a day or two

A few extra water changes never hurts either (I've got a 12" oscar in my 125g tank, and he's always hungrier after his weekly water change ! )

[Mad Hatter]

I don't know if this is normal or if its what is affecting their eating habits, but my albino just crapped out the biggest turd I have ever seen a fish that small crap out. I'm not talkin length, I'm talkin girth. This thing is bigger than its eye, I thought it was food pellet at first. Are my oscars getting stopped up?

[Georgia Peach]

its possible. They could have swallowed some pellets whole instead of chewing them up. I would go a day or two without feeding them. Im not real sure what else to do for a constipated Oscar..

[ron v]

What kind of pellets? Hard? Have you tried soaking them first? That wouldn't explain not taking blood worms and brine shrimp. Gosh, "picky" and "oscars" are two words that just don't go together. I wonder if some internal parasite or something is at work here. Maybe Old Salt or someone will jump in here.

[Mad Hatter]

Well I finally got them to eat something, I'm guessing its ok although I've never heard of it before. I had some left over boiled shrimp from my superbowl party and I gave a piece to my crayfish, he fricken attacked it. So I chopped up some smaller pieces and dropped some into the oscars, they went nuts. Before I dropped it in I had to scoop out the old pellets that were still floating from trying to feed them before so its not like the where just desperate. Other than the price anybody see anything wrong with this?

[redpaulhus]

shrimp is a good food choice as long as it is handled properly (I wouldn't use leftover bait shrimp, or human food shrimp that have been left too long at room temp (unsafe for us is unsafe for them IMO)). But shrimp from the deli are a great food for big predators IMO.

I used to feed shrimp to my breeding oscars when I was in college - wayyy cheaper than krill ! and great for bringing out the red colors.
I also fed alot of live marine crabs, shrimp, and silversides (I lived 2 miles from the beach in Florida, and collected my own food every weekend ). Gut loaded crickets (I feed good quality flake food to the crickets) and redworms were also very happily slurped down, as was the occasional small "fence lizard" (aka anole).

My current oscar gets assorted "Formula" frozen food cubes from Ocean Nutrition, frozen shrimp, crickets, worms, and pieces of scallop in addition to pellets (and the occasional flake or wafer he grabs when I feed his tankmates), not to mentions frozen mysids, plankton, and bloodworms.

I try to avoid pet store feeder fish for any of my fishes, but I do feed this oscar the occasional cull from my breeding tanks.