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My boyfriend and i recently purchased a couple of oscars, at f irst they were very stressed and would not eat at all. tonight i finally got them to eat then about 30-45 minutes later they spit out a bunch of what was lef tof the pellets. whats going on here?

From your description, I dont think it is vomit. All of my fish do that, to even larger sized flakes. They probably bit off more than they can chew-literally. They will grind it up in their mouth, and then spit out what cannot be swallowed too easily. Its normal behaivior, and if you are really worried, use live foods to feed them for a few days, then gradually start feeding them the prepared foods.

Good luck!

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Do they vomit and eat the food they just vomited? It's compltely natural, dont sweat it

Could be a maldigestion issue, if the tank isnt properly cycled, or saturated oxygen low, and especially if the temps arent warm enough or fluctuate a lot an oscar will get maldigestion, and that can lead to vomiting. Oscars are also a primarily carnivorous fish, too much in the way of vegetable matter in the diet may also cause regurgitation. Perhaps try bloodworm and small frozen fish pieces and see if they digest it any better.

So basically tank readings including temperature are essential here, and what pellets are you giving them?

If they all check out ok, youve got parasites to consider. Regurgitation is quite common within a few minutes of a feed, a lot of fish do that, but 45 minutes is a real problem, digestion should be underway by then and a regurgitation a fairly reliable sign of a dietary problem, a gut irritation, a maldigestion issue baed on temps or oxygen, unsuitable food or parasite irritation, possibly even constipation. Occassionally it might be overfeeding too.

As for the comments above- er guys if your fish are spewing up regularly, you wanna look into that. Any fish spewing regularly has a real health problem or feeding issue. Chewing food and just spitting it out within seconds isnt the same thing as having a major vomit 45 minutes later, and even throwing up within a couple of minutes is a sign of classic overfeeding or using foods that need to be presoaked because they are swelling up in the gut and making the fish puke. I have over 300 fish and I get maybe one fish have a real puke about once every couple of months. What the hell are you guys feeding your fish with?

Any info you can come back with might help get to the cause.

I have been feeding them Hikari Cichlid Staple, occasional freeze dried shrimp, and today they got live fish. Water temp 78*F

Ah that might explain it, hikari cichlid staple is more for omnivores, and oscars are more towards the carnivore end, try the meatier pellets in the range. I also wouldnt use freeze dried foods with an animal this size, theyll eat them so quickly, before theyve absorbed water, unless youre presoaking them, and it might well make them puke.

http://www.hikariusa.com/cichlid_bio-gold+.htm

http://www.hikariusa.com/sinking_carnivore.htm

http://www.hikariusa.com/massivore_delite.htm

I'd avoid the live fish because of disease transmission issues- most oscars pick up hexamita from feeder goldfish. While fish may be a fairly complete meal, if youre gonna do that sort of thing, breed your own guppies that have been QT'd for disease, its much safer, and the small size of the prey keeps the feeds more humane, and multiple small fish are better than single larger ones.

Its also normal for oscars to eat a fairly large amount of invertebrate food, so despite the size, you can keep the frozen bloodworm etc rolling in. Home cultured earthworms are another possibility.


The water temp is ok, but youll need to make sure you match temps for cichlids as much as possible when you do water changes. Oscars need big changes, and if that water is going in cold, serious maldigestion for a couple of days after such changes is very likely. you could also trigger swimbladder issues.

Oh shoot! My bad, I didnt see the 30-45 minutes part. When i read the post, i just read the "spit out what was left of the pellets" part. Im sorry for any hard feelings.....

Anyway, I also had the same problem with freeze dried foods, as the fish i have were having digestion problems, constipation, and stringy poo for a few weeks til somebody told me why.

PS: Why do oscars dont like the omnivourous food? Is it because they cant handle the veggies, or because it dosent taste good?

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Primarily predacious fish have a slightly different GI tract to herbivores and true omnivores, often shorter and set for faster digestion, and fish that are primarily piscivorous or invertabrate eaters in particular are used to oils and protiens that smooth transit rather than relying on dietary fibre as vegetarian fish do.

Predators have less bacterial gut fauna and stronger stomach acids and enzymes, and if you give them too much plant cellulose or fibre they tend to get gas as that very potent acid hits plant sources. The converse is true for vegetarians getting too much protien, they have slower digestion, more gut fauna and longer gi tracts, meaty foods sat in a vegetarians gut for long periods causes a gut fauna population explosion, and again the bacterial respiration causes gas. Their transit is eased by high dietary fibre.

Food has to fit the fish, and its evolutionary lifestyle. Be very wary of many "complete formula foods for all fish" . Few are that good. For most its nothing more than a hugely inflated claim.

Manufacturing often results in the loss of dietary components correct for digestion even though the nutrient balance may be correct. Herbivores need the fibre, and that makes the food capacious for the nutrition it offers, often lightweight and cheap, conversly to keep the oil content correct for predators the pellet tends to be very dense and often heavy. If your giving a light pellet to a predatory fish, youll know it wont suit the fish properly, even if its advertised as such.

Its like cat bicuits and veg foods for dogs, they are more faddy than nutritionally correct, pet food manufacturers are unscrupulous, and pander to the fad market. Predators are predators, and taking account of prey gut content does no translate into making a primarily vegetable based food suitable for carnivores or vice versa.

You can get by manufactururs bullcrap most of the time , simply by checking the density of the pellet.

By literal definition oscars are omnivores, being that when a bit hard up for protien sources or looking for certain nutrients they will try some vegetable matter, but they are so predatory in reality that perhaps by choice 90% of the diet will be fish and invertabrate protien, and like most predators they get the vegetable matter from the gut contents of their usually omnivore prey.

For fish like convict cichlids that like a 50/50 split, the pellets she was initially using would be suitable, or suitable for an oscar at no more than 10 % of the diet. For a primary feed for an oscar, you should be looking at the denser, heavier pellets like those I gave links for, and even then, some real foods would be good too. Most predators by definition take prey that has a lot of water in them, be it blood , fat, various humus, eviscera, and that means food should be protien rich and moist.A light crispy food doesnt really cover that, but a dense pellet, once under digestion will be oily, and smoother, hence more suitable. An oscar does not have the gi length to handle a large amount of cellulose as in plant matter and algae, so you wouldnt expect it to do well on such a diet.

In human terms an oscar would eat a whole turkey and only want the one sprout.lol. You dont want to forget giving it that one sprout, but giving it 10 sprouts would make it vomit.

long explan, but you asked. LOL.

Thank you so much! I had some Cichlid Gold left over from the cichlid I had before and started feeding that to them and they seem to like it much better, and it doesnt cloud the water

Ok, now i know!

It seems so complicated right now, but im sure its pretty easy once you get used to it. Anyway, Is blood good for their GI tract? Is live foods (IE: Feeder guppies) better for it than lets say meaty foods such as carnivore pellets? Also, is it a must for it to have some vegetable matter in their diet? Or is it optional? THanks for explaining, and i learned a lot!

THanks!

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Well in theory a real piscivore diet would seem to have to include real fish and indeed its no bad thing if it does, as long as you arent just buying fish from the lfs and throwing them to you fish, because the disease risks of doing that are horrific.

The theory also reaches its limit when you realise a fish like an oscar eats many different species- not just a guppy or a goldie, and no one species of fish represents complete nutrition for an oscar. Thats where artificial foods and pellets become more attractive, and even for big fish like oscars, frozen livefoods like bloodworm remain practical, if a little pricey, feeding options.

There is intrinsic safety in using frozen livefoods, the freezing process kills some parasites, gamma irradiation kills even more, but even then, frozen foods are not the complete solution. A completely frozen diet may lead to a reduction in b vitamins thanks to thiaminase produced particularly by frozen fish, so you have to vary it a little. Thats where the prepared diets like hikari stuff comes in. Gives the fish a break from thiaminase, and the foods are enriched with vitamins, making up im part for problematic exclusive use of frozen foods, and in part for the lacking diet variety produced by an exclusive diet of very few species of live fish.

So a perfect feeding regime for an oscar is one that comprises homeraised disease vetted live or better yet humanely prekilled fish and invertebrates, that dont have to live with the oscar when they arent being eaten. A good selection of staple diets like the hikari ones I linked to, and a good selection of frozen foods from worms to fish and shellfish. Use all of them, and rotate them often.

Major point being, that for the fishs GI health as well as its nutritional and vitamin balance you have to use all the available foods, and make sure one never really becomes favoured over the decent staple pellet in terms of quantity. Dont however fall for statements about a pellet being complete. Good fish feeding is about drawing from a range of sources, widening variety, and avoiding monotypic feeding because it causes transit issues and vitamin imbalances.

When you have a fish like an oscar you dont just pick a food and give it just that, you have to use everything available.