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Hello all:

Just purchased a baby oscar the other day. He is about 1.5" long, and seems to be settling in very nicely. I wanted to get some recommendations for food. Right now, he is eating regular Tetra flake food, which is what the other fish in the tank eat. Since he is small, this will work for only a limited time. I also purchased Hikari Cichlid Staple, which is a pelleted food. He can manage to get 1 or 2 down.

My concern came after reading a forum on another web site that stated that Hikari is a low quality food for oscars because it contains fish meal, which is "bottom of the barrel" in quality. Can anyone tell me of high quality brands that are particularly good for oscars? I want him to live long and be healthy. I do plan to feed him some live food, such as crickets, mealworms, and ghost shrimp, but I do need to find a good staple food.

that's the first time I've heard of Hikari as being of low quality. I am registered to several cichlid only forum sites and I've always seen New Life Spectrum and Hikari listed as 2 of the better brands of fish food. New Life Spectrum probably is the best but it is fairly expensive. Another good one that is more veggie/spirulina based than most other fish foods is Dainichi but this one is also a little expensive and can be difficult to find. they do sell it over at [link=http://www.kensfish.com]http://www.kensfish.com" style="COLOR: #ff0033[/link] though which is where I get it from.

thats the 1st i've heard of that too.

i fed my oscars hikari growing up and they loved it. what are the other fish in the tank with the oscar? just keep an eye on them coz oscars will eat anything they can fit in their mouth, and they are not shy to try!

I always thought too that Hikari was a good brand. I'll stick with it for now.

The other fish in my 55 gallon, besides the oscar, are a large hoplo catfish, a bristlenose pleco, and two red-lined torpedo barbs. I do not plan to add anything else, except for maybe one or two more of the torpedo barbs. The barbs are the only question mark as far as Oscar fodder goes. Currently, they are much too large and active to become a meal. I guess I'll see what happens as the oscar matures.

i understand what he is saying though, the main ingrediants in hikari food in grains of some sort. i find this to be a tough subject because i only feed new life to my other fish because their food is made with real fish but everyone suggest the hikari, so now i alternate between the two daily and add vitamins to both. i hope i am doing good by the fish, he could probly eat rocks and be ok though.


chris

the 2 things I always check when looking at fish foods are the fat and protein contents. I believe most of the hikari foods run around 35-40% protein and 5% fat which is a good ratio. yeah, the primary ingredient in all hikari foods are fish meal, but you'll find this is the case with most fish foods on the market. the only exception I've found actually in the recent research I've done is new life spectrum. granted, NLS is an excellent food and is widely accepted as the best on the market, it is also the most expensive. the primary ingredient in most of the NLS foods is krill meal, and fish meal is the second ingredient. the fat to protein content in NLS is pretty much the same as hikari running on average between 35-40% protein to 5-9% fat.

another excellent brand that is not as common is Dainichi]http://www.dainichi.com/home.html[/link]. you can order this food in the US pretty cheap from [link. incidentally, you can also order NLS from kensfish pretty cheap as well.

So, if I feed primarily with flake food and Hikari cichlid pellets, and supplement with live food, I should be covering all the bases?

personally I wouldn't mess with flakes. you can buy small baby pellets that your oscar should be able to eat even at such a small size. hikari for sure makes a "mini" pellet that should be fine for your oscar.