can my juvenile eat sea roaches? those little inverts on the side of sea walls and rocks in tidal areas?

I wouldn't recommend it. Feeding them seafood isn't inherently bad, but you never know what those little buggies have come into contact with out in the wild, any number of chemicals, etc. It's playing Russian roulette with your oscar, in my opinion.

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right now im feeding him feeders, and oscar grow pellets.....and i have heard people on this site talking smack about feeders, being dangerous for the same reasons you mentioned with the little sea roaches......im looking for a close food source, after seing people feed their oscars worms from the yard and such....thanks for the reply!

Feeders aren't bad per se, if you can find a reputable vendor. The problem is that most feeders (comets especially) are raised and kept in outdoor ponds down in Florida and over in the East. This puts them directly in the line of fire for any number of nasty parasite and diseases, which they can easily pass on to your oscars. Add to it that feeders aren't exactly nutritionally complete, and there's little reason to feed them. My oscars get a combination of meaty water-based proteins (fish, shrimp, clams, etc.) that I get fresh from the local seafood market. This diet is also augmented with the cichlid pellets, which provide the nutrients they need that isn't also supplied by the fresh stuff.

They get an occasional treat of feeder fish, but never comets. I only ever feed them tuffies, and tuffies that I've kept quarantined for a week at that. I know this all sounds like overkill, but aren't they worth it?

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sweet! fish, shrimp, clams, from the local market.....any white fish, or what? do you feed it to them raw? and shrimp, im guessing not pre-cooked? clams? please give me a little run-through.....do you buy raw clams and dice them up, or what? my oscar is only about
thiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii iiiiiiiiiiis big, but a very greedy eater.

and i have a jack dempsey, almost twice as big.....same thing for him?


thanks!!!

I fed shrimp and clams; fish in my experience tends to fall apart really easily, and makes a huge mess in the tank. The only fish I found that works well is salmon, but that should be fed sparingly as it has a high fat content and that's never a good thing when it comes to Oscars. You can feed the stuff to them raw, but I'd recommend nuking it in the microwave real quick to cook it and kill off any potential parasites, etc. Being seafood, the chances of it containing anything that could infect your fish is minimal, but it's always a good idea to play it safe.

Dice it up into small enough pieces for your fish to easily take on into its mouth and swallow it. If you give them too big of pieces, they tend to chew on them and make a big mess. If you want, you can freeze the extra to have it on hand, but I'd recommend using it up fairly quickly. I fed cichlid pellets twice a week, with a once a week treat of the meaty stuff, all evenly spaced out time-wise. This will help keep your fish from becoming obese (yes, it does happen and no it's not any better for them than it is for us).

Good luck, and feel free to ask any other questions if you need more clarification.

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I feed frozen fish, clams and shrimp to my sunfish (defrosted of course). I recon that freezing kills most stuff so I don't bother cooking it. I like frozen because it's convienent, just take out the bit you want.

That's a good point, if you're going to be freezing it, cooking won't be necessary.

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