Raising Oscars

[andrew]

I have 3 Fish... 1 red tiger oscar,1 white tiger oscar (baby in nursery) and 1 algae eater.. as for food wise I usually give him a feeder fish once every 2 weeks but his diet usually consists of #7 trout pellets (7am and 12 pm) and some cooked lean hamburger at around 6pm... My father raises other fish but is new to the oscar thing but seems to think that I am doing it wrong and will kill the big oscar because I feed it too much but in the mean time he has 5 half its size but the same age that he feeds flake food once a day.. Am I doing it right? my tank is a 33 gallon btw

 

[DannyBoy17]

Well, you probably know this, but I'll say it anyways: 2 Oscars need a 60-75g tank. What kind of algae eater is it?

The thing about Oscars is they will eat anything. Last year, a friend through an oreo in my tank for laughs, and 5 mins later it was gone. I see no problem with what you are feeding, although Ive never gave any fish hamburger meat before.

DB

 

[littlefishie]

Just be reallllly careful feeding them when they get larger.

They like to bite. And jump.
Dan can attest to that. His oscar's insane.

 

[DannyBoy17]

Just be reallllly careful feeding them when they get larger.

They like to bite. And jump.
Dan can attest to that. His oscar's insane.

Yes, they other day, my 4 inch guy jumped up, bit my finger, and held on for a few seconds. Luckily I supressed my usual reaction, which would have been shaking my hand like a maniac.

DB

 

[spoonta66]

my 6" red oscar is one of those maniacs he has launched his entire body out of the tank to get food from my fingers. hes a greedy little bugger.

 

[Jason_S]

I certainly wouldn't feed any fish hamburger. Hamburger, especially on a regular basis, is bad for people so it surely isn't good for fish either. I would feed the oscars a quality pellet food or 2, supplemented with frozen or freeze dried krill, brine shrimp, blood worms, beefheart and live black worms, meal worms, earthworms, crayfish, crickets etc. You can also feed them raw shrimp from your grocery store. Once the oscars are large enough you can feed them whole shrimps, but in the meantime you'll probably have to cut them up.

 

[freddyk]

I don't think hamburger is a good idea at all, even the lean stuff is very fatty as far as fish are concerned, and their systems won't handle it for long. Beef heart, carefully trimed of fat, is as close as it should get for fish, and even then I don't see the point when there are so many safe alternatives.

Feeding the fish excessively will promote fast growth, as you can tell. I'll bet, however that in the end your dad's fish will end up the healthier of them, and will end up making for nicer looking adults. Fish forced to grow faster then normal tend to show it.

I'm sure you know you'll need a much much bigger tank - eventually they'll beat the daylights out of each other in that one.