Help, my ocars arent growing!!?

Question

we have had two ocars in a 55 gallon tank now for 7 to 8 months and their still only 3 inches long. there are no other fish in with them. their diet is pellets right now. we were feeding them those feeder fish but they got that ick.so right now the main sourse of food is the pellets. and we feed them the pellets 3 to 4 times a day. can someone please tell me why their not growing or is this the norm?

Answer 1

I had a pair of oscars once. One grew to be an enormous size while the other one stayed relatively small. it could be their sex possibly. I definately reccomend feeder fish such as tiny goldfish or guppies to begin with, then larger goldfish as the oscars can handle. Hopefully the pet store does not frequently sell sick fish, if so that is pretty messed up. To save money, I actually started to breed guppies, they breed fast, live bearing so its easy, and they have up to 50-100 babies at once if you are giving them the ideal living conditions. If you are treating them for illness or choose not to feed live food. I also recommend the freeze dried krill (shrimp) they sell a brand in a can called "Jumbo Shrimp", those are large and have a high amount of protein in them for the oscar to grow, along with the above mentioned blood worms, also very high in protein, but small. Fish often grow to the size of the tank and then stop, but a 55g should be suffice for two oscar. I recommend a large pleco also to keep the tank clean and the oscar may compete for food with it so they will be more inclined to eat as much as they should be. Funny thing about my oscars is they stopped eating live food and ultimately lived on a krill diet. I asked an oscar specialist and he said there was nothing wrong with them, they just got too big and lazy to hunt anymore hahahahah. Good luck with them.

Answer 2

Your tanks too small for 2 oscars, need at least a 75 gallon minimum. Feeders as you've found out aren't the greatest thing to feed them either. Not much nutritional value in them, spreads diseases, and too messy. Oscars are messy fish anyway, which if cleaned fairly quick will lead to poor water quality. Vary their diet more with bloodworms, beefheart, cocktail shrimp, canned crickets, mealworms, earthworms, the list is almost endless. Good pellet should be the main staple, but they really need a variety. Also pick up a liquid vitamin, I used the children's Poly Vi Sol, and once or twice a week soak their pellets in that for awhile and feed it to them. They should be much larger then that really. They grow average 12+ inches, and usually most of that growing is done within the first 6-8 months. They grow fast. Here's a link for a good forum with lots of oscar info.

http://www.oscarfish.com/

Answer 3

Sometimes petstores have fish in an aquarium for a long time. Say they had these oscars since they were babies and kept them in a small tank. The oscars may actually be OLD now and their growth was stunted from being in the small aquarium at the petstore.
Anyway, I had oscars and fed them live worms from my yard. (only do this if you know that the ground is clean of chemicals... not recommended in the city) Rinse them off and either cut the worm into smaller pieces or let them tear it up. Fun to watch, healthy for your fish and free! :)

Answer 4

Weekly water changes and excellent filtration is a start. This will help keep the Oscar happy and healthy. Also, its good to have a varied diets especially in protein, vitamins and minerals. Give a variety of things but avoid feeders. Feed them shrimp (krill is a little cheaper), bloodworms, crickets, meal worms, earth worms and ghost shrimp.

Answer 5

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Answer 6

take a picture of them 1 a month and look back at the pictures. They are probably growing and you just don't realize it. I feed my fancy tail goldfish orange slices and they grew really fast. Also make sure your water quality is good.

Answer 7

well they may have gotten ich cause the water was unstable from putting in feeder fish, just get water test kits and try to keep the water stable

Answer 8

55 gal tank is decent size... you need to put a garbage fish in there with them, although he needs to be bigger than them.. they have to get feeder fish to get to the right size.. next step after that is that you need a bigger tank, keep in mind , they only get so big and won't get bigger than the enviroment they live in..

Answer 9

Try feeding them frozen blood worms, live crickets and meal worms. They need protein.

Answer 10

They are growing but slowly, that is why you don't notice it. Do not overfeed them