Juvenile Oscar Diet

[Kaybear11]

I am looking into different foods (pellets, freeze dried, etc) to get for my juvenile Oscar when I get one soon. I am thinking about getting Hikari Cichlid Gold pellets as the staple, would the mini ones be the size needed? Are there better staple pellets that I should be looking at?

As far as freeze dried foods go, I think I can only really feed blood worms since he will be smaller or what other options do I have? Any other info about good foods for a juvenile is much appreciated. Also I am not and will not be feeding live foods. Thanks!

 

[fishguy2727]

The best diet would be a high quality pellet. I only feed and recommend New Life Spectrum (specifically the Thera+A formula). If that is not available the best Hikari food would be the Bio-Gold+.

Frozen and freeze dried foods are just protein sources, which will be included in any high quality pellet. I wouldn't feed any.

Either way feed them many times each day (4-6 times daily if possible) and decrease the frequency as they grow until they are only eating once or twice a week as adults.

 

[micko]

Cichlid gold. I use the medium for mine but he's not that small. He also loves krill and bloodworm. Both frozen. I throw in the odd worm too but only once in a while.

Oh and I soak the cichlid gold too for about ten minutes prior to feeding. He will eat that much when it goes into the tank that I'm sure its still dry and anything dry will swell up once its in his stomach.

 

[fishguy2727]

Dry food won't swell up in their stomach. Even if it did they could simply regurgitate a little of it.

Soaking food is a great way to remove most of the water soluble vitamins, lowering the nutritional value of the food.

 

[micko]

Anything which is dry and them soaked will swell. Although I've never though about the nutritional value being lowered. Must look into it a bit more.

 

[fishguy2727]

I have never heard of any fish having any problems with food swelling. IMO this is an overhyped myth. Just feed them the pellets. If they swell up and explode let us know. Expanding in a container of water and in the stomach are too very different things. Any expansion that does occuer is minimal.

 

[Kaybear11]

I will look into the New Spectrum Life pellet. I was just going to feed the freeze dried food as a treat once in a while. Do you feed shelled peas when they are young? I want mine to be used to different things so hopefully he won't be too picky as an adult. Thanks for all the info

 

[fishguy2727]

They don't need peas, the only thing I hear that for on a regular basis is goldfish.

NLS is nutritionally all they need and it should be fed exclusively.