Getting Pellets Etc Into My Oscars

[markandhisfish]

cheech and chong have decided lately that if its not live and wriggling then its not food. they refuse pellets/prawn/peas etc and have been feeding solely on mealworms and mealworm beetles . not exactly balanced enough for my liking , so i got them some crickets as well today with a view to gutloading the livefood. well the fish LOVE the crickets . even better the crickets and the beetles seem to love the pellets and peas , so i can fill them with peas and pellets then feed them to the fish. the fish are happy cos they think they have won , and im happy cos i know that they are eating the stuff they dont want to .

kind of reminds me of when your parents would disguise all the "good" food you hated as a kid so you ate it without knowing

 

[star4]

Or stop spoiling them and dont offer them live food until they eat the pellet!

 

[markandhisfish]

i tried starving them for a few days with no effect at all. been talking to people on an oscar forum, lots af members there have encountered the same thing , and their fish never accepted pellets again. but this way i know they are getting a good balanced diet.

 

[minxfishy]

Trust me, a couple of weeks without food and they will eat anything. Ive had the same problem the last couple of weeks with my two after their experience before xmas, its taken time and to the point where I thought they wouldnt survive much longer without food, but in the end, they gave in and are once again back on the pellets.

 

[markandhisfish]

if they were adults id starve em for longer but right now is an important time in their development so id rather get food into them . they are eating the pellets.......they just dont know it

 

[Verminator89]

Carefull mark, Oscars aint like the rest of em I supppose they are eating, but like has been said...they might not go back to pellets. I dare try live food with mine, not untill he's atleast 8-9", then i may treat him.

 

[hamfist]

It sounds good in many ways. However, I would suspect that the vitamin content of the "bug-processed" pellets would be considerably lower than in the pellets themselves.
It may not end up being a huge problem, but I would advise that you get them back on pellets at some point. I can also see your point about not wanting to starve them at a critical point in their development.

 

[simonas]

knowing how greedy these feckers are I;d starve em till theytake them it will make your life so much easier to get them on the pellets

 

[markandhisfish]

ive been doing a fair bit of research on oscar diets . they are primarily insect/crustacean eaters , with around 60% of their diet being made up of bugs / larvae etc that drop from trees in the amazon. they dont require vegetable matter in their diet . they are opportunistic predators which therefore have evolved to be ablew to thrive by eating just about anything. the only thing i really need to be carefull about is not giving them too much fatty stuff .

from all my reesearch , the oscars will grow/develop just fine on a diet of bugs and live shrimp . in fact if anything they should grow better as i am closely replicating their natural diet.

crickets are rich in protein,calcium and iron , shrimp are rich in protein , vitamins especially a,c,and d along with amino acids and virtually no fat , the mealworms are rich in protein , but also pretty high in fat so these are fed less than the others.

ive found a site with a gutloading recipe for the crickets which i can put vitamins,garlic etc etc in which just serves as a little "boost" to the nutritional value of them . all in all its actually an excellent diet for oscars .

i will continue to offer pellets as well but its no problem if they wont take them .