i currently feed bloodworms, fish dinner, flake & granules, cichlid pellets & bottom feeder pellets, they have a comb that i change around. so who feeds their fish what & any opinions on different foods being better for example, bring out colours etc?

i feed my fish quality flake (with high protein %)

spirulina flake (to bring out colours)

& newly hatched bbs

All tanks (except oscar) get a large flake, at the moment its Nutrafin Tropcial flake.

Oscar/Red Devil tank gets a special mix that Helen makes up, its an Ox-heart/spinach/shrimp mix (see oscarspot.com for recipie) (he absolutely LOVES this food).

All tanks get frozen bloodworms, some more than others.

Raising some platty fry on a combo of crushed flake and Fry Staple Diet powder.

Oscar loves snails and fish. He had a danio with a bad back for dessert on Saturday, and about 20 neons a few weeks ago.

Golden Bristlenose, Redspot and Common plecs get fed algae tabs (various brands, Nutrafin is my favourite but I'm using Wardley at the mo) and Courgette slices (much better than Cucumber which goes slimy too quick).

have you tried raw spud for your pleco's? they love it, haven't fed it for a while, i always forget to slice them a thin strip at tea time

have you tried raw spud for your pleco's? they love it, haven't fed it for a while, i always forget to slice them a thin strip at tea time

I'll try that! Thanks

i feed novo-bits and quality flake every night in my big planted tank and small planted tank. I feed a slice of cucumber to my BN breeding tank everynow and again with novo bits every now and again aswell.

I feed bloodworms as a treat every few days. I have quality marine flake for my marine tank but dont have fish in it yet so dont feed it :lol:

I also feed whiteworms once every couple weeks as an extra special treat.

Its interesting how most people feed their plecos/BN etc. pleco chips.... I have a pottle of them that i have used a few times but it never gets eaten. i hardly ever feed my BN now unless i am conditioning them for breeding. they get all the novo-bits that fall to the bottom of the tank..... but as a treat i use shrimp pellets every now and again for them.. but the corys usually get that before the BN come out at night :lol:

i feed....................

Trout Pellets (Absolutley AWESOME) I have about 4 different sizes.

Bloodworms

Shelled shrimps

Cucumber

Peas

Beef heart with special mix

Whiteworms

Spirulina Flake

Brineshrimp Flake

Cucumber

White Cloud Mountain Minnows

Tetra Colour Bits

JBL Pleco Chips

Flake

Daphnia

Worms

kiddie fingers

blood

corrrrrr! some of your fish are better fed than me. No 19 course meals here just frozen bloodworm/ vipagran or discus granules which all my fish seem to enjoy.

cheers Jim.

have you tried raw spud for your pleco's? they love it, haven't fed it for a while, i always forget to slice them a thin strip at tea time

spud as in potato?

yip, thin slices, i rinse under the tap first & then chuck it in, takes them about 30 seconds to find it.

excellent thanks for that shadowfax I'll give that ago

home made beefheart recipie for oscar

novo discus bits

plain flake

colour granules

shrimp pellets

cichlid sticks

pleco chips

homemade discus tucker (thanks Luke*)

LFS discus tucker

LFS cichlid tucker

shrimp

courgette

peas

lettuce

worms

locusts and praying mantis (oscars treats in summer)

bloodworms

mysis shrimp

and i want to feed whiteworms once i get my hands on a culture

and thats all i can think of at present, i try to give everyone a nice varity and im proud to say i have taken over half the freezer :lol:

heya just woundering if anyone has try'd the spud slices if so could you post feedback im gonna try tomorow mornin see how it gos sounds like an interesting alternative cheers for the info.

after posting it i rembered to give them abit at tea time, if you have more than 1 plec or bn you may need to chop your slice into a few bits, once my plec jumped on it the bn's had to wait they turn, by bedtime they where allowed to have some!

just reading up on goldfish after the carryone in my pond the other day, interested to read this on a site

Carotenes. Besides being tasty and easy to catch, comet goldfish contain carotenoids that bring out the reds and oranges in the fishes that eat them. That’s why oscar keepers buy so many goldfishes, anyone raise comets to feed to their oscars?

i gotta say that site musta been telling lies :-? i am an oscar keeper and consider myself to know a fair bit about them and feeders are one of the worst things to feed them (and most fish). besides the fact that oscars eat very little fish in the wild (they prefer crustacians, bugs etc). i was recently informed by a friend on the subject of feeders that

Certain fish used broadly as feeders are also high in thiaminaise (spelling is objective) which when ingested seem to prevent the absorption of other essential nutrients such as vitamin D as well as some minerals, creating a direct link to nutritional deficiencies, immune system deficiencies and less than ideal growth, and even potential abnormal growth (much less likely but still possible).

i have written this down as i personally didnt know any of the scientific downsides to them other than the introduction of disease

i am unsure of how much carotenoids goldies have have but when you weigh up the potential disease introduction and downside of feeding them nutritonally i say your money is better spent on krill or prepared foods that have natural colour enhancers.

oscars do not need the 'exercise' of feeders and the mental stimulation can be derived from many other sources which are 100% safe, you can make up safe ways to drag pieces of prawn/food around your tank (which i do every now and again) to make them chase it or those neat little silicon fishing lures without the hook can provide a bit of stimulation for these cuties

guess you can tell im anti feeders for oscars huh? :lol:

lol, yip but reading your post its not without reason, i guess everyone has their own ideas on what works best, thats why i started this topic, always great to find out more about what others do & you never stop learning!

too right, im sure most of our fish eat better than us :lol:

feeders are not one of those 'never ever do that' things, home bred healthy ones are ok every now and again but for many fish (excluding piscavores) there are better alternatives, even if prepared foods are less fun for them :lol:

Speaking of which, what are you opinions on bloodworms and adult ramshorn snails? (in regards to oscars)

We've been feeding the oscarspot recipie at night, but normally during the day I drop one or two frozen bloodworms blocks in.

I've also got ramshorn snails in the same tank as my young GBAs, so lots of green food + higher temp = lots of snails, and rather than waste them I've been dropping them in the oscar/reddevil tank as a treat (he really likes them).

We got a pair of baby albino tiger oscars on Monday too. Using the same feeding method for all 3, except no snails for the young pair.

The November Aquarium World will have an article explaining colour enhancing foods and what is used where for which fish.

Did you know if you feed an orange canary on carrot it will turn a brighter orange?

thanks carol, sounds like a good read, back to the oscars, when i first got my tank, did some asking round wanting to know what would be good fish to put in my tank, as its big i didn't want to waste the space & i was told oscars were great to own but the glass thickness need to be xxxx thick ( cant rember) & i measured mine & its only 6mm on 2 sides & 5mm on the other 3, (sound dodgy???) talked to the lady in the fish shop & she said glass on came in 2 thicknesses & i tried saying to her mine where neither of them, didnt end up getting very far with her, ( funny thing is the tank came from that shop!! even tho it was a few years ago) so between thinking my glass is too thin & not being able to buy baby oscars that was that, can anyone shed some light on the glass thickness thing, does it need to be thicker than what i have for oscars or is it a pile of rubbish?

Our 200L tank with 9 inch oscar is 6mm glass.

Planning on replacing it with a 300L tank with 10mm glass, but only because that size tank comes in 10mm glass, not intentially buying it to prevent the oscar from breaking it.

If you're looking at getting an oscar, now is the time, as one of the importers has just bought in a batch of young ones, and I don't think this is a regular occurance. I bought these bubbies for $25ea for Helen as a present on Monday:

And oh boy can they eat They're as cute as puppies though. They explore the aquarium all day until they see me or Helen then its beg time, and they get sooo excited.

mines a 300L, now i am worried!! ive decide on getting surinamensis, but i can see i will end up with more tanks in the future!

bloodworms are fine for oscars but wont be the most suitable food for adults, my 11"er probably wouldnt be able to manage to get any down his throat- itd all go our his gills :lol:

ramshorns are fine, oscars eat alot of crustacians in the wild and are pretty good at digesting that stuff. i have seen Tracey mention a few times that her O's get garden snails- one will suck the snail out of its shell and the other will eat it whole, shell and all. your lucky to have ones that eat ramshorns!

oscars are brutes of fish when the want to be, my tank is also done in a mix of glass from 12mm to 6mm and whilst its probably not classed as 'safe' it has held water fine for years (tank is 360L), it would be a risk to have thinner glass but i would be hesitant to say that an O could break it. fish like jags, dovii, pacu and other very large fish could could easily help the glass to break when its too thin by applying that intial force but the water pressure is what helps it along (there are exceptions though).

for a 300L you are techinally able to have 2 O's and nothing else but i would personally only have one, with perhaps a firemouth, coupla cons, or your Geo. they do get large and my 360L looks full enough with 4 fish (one adult O, a medium sev, a RT black shark and a 20cm pleco). they are active fish that like to prowl up and down their tank so the more room you can give them the better

if you get young O's that havent gone thru puberty you run the risk of them deciding they hate each other (which can happen easily when theyre adults too though), 6" is around the time they go through that and can be worse than tempermental teengagers. of course getting adult/subadult O's and putting them in the same tank can also have its problems. every oscar is different so you need to be prepared just incase