Hello I've have had my oscar for 6 months now and he is growing nicely he eats shrimps, pellets and even the algae wafers I feed to my pleco. I have noticed for the last few days he has not eaten any food at all. Is this normal behavior or should I be worried about my Oscar?

oscars are known for going off their foods on occasion. i wouldnt worry about it to much unless he goes on it for an extended period of time(over a week).
make sure your water parameters are fine(ammonia 0 nitrites 0 and nitrates under 40) and if they are good, give him a bit of time to see if its only temporary.


btw welcome to the site

Oscars can be extremely fussy fish when it comes to food. One of my Oscars will beg for food but as soon as you put pellets then he will swim to the other side of the tank. As soon as any krill goes in, he's back eating them. Don't ask me why they do this, I don't think anyone will be able to answer that question for sure.

What you could try is playing him at his own game. If he won't eat what you put in, don't put any food in. Give it a few days and then try again. This is not a guaranteed method of getting any fish to eat but it is one avenue you could try. I wouldn't worry about the other fish, fish can go for weeks and months without food. If after this period he still won't eat, maybe try some live food and see what happens

My oscar is doing just about the same thing. I have had him for almost a week and he is about 1.5 inches long. When he first arrived at his new home, he couldnt get enough of his cichlid gold pellets. Now when i put them in, he rushes over and grabs them and spits them out as if they are not up to his standards taste wise anymore. He also does this with HBH oscar grow as well as Hikari freeze dried brine shrimp. Although he is more active now then when he would eat. Water and everything is where it needs to be. I guess he is just a picky eater for the time being.

as necro had said, we need to know your water parameter.
if all water is okey, no need to worry. but if water have
some issues, better do water change immediately to play safe.

Hey thanks for the advice on trying some live foods. I went out and bought 10 feeder fish. Minnows to be exact. My Oscar eat three of them in the first couple of minutes. Hopefully this will entice his appetite and start eating again.

Unfortunately this isn't the type of food that we recommend, especially if you bought it from the fish store. I'm sorry if I misled you, I would never recommend anyone go and buy a feeder fish for their Oscar to eat. The problem is many fish, especially the small community fish is that they are put under a lot of stress before they get to the shops, this can often result in them being diseased and ill, you certainly don't want to be feeding this type of food to Oscar. It is very common for newly arrived fish at the fish stores to develop infections such as ick.

I would recommend you getting some live crickets, this will be a very similar food to what they will eat in the wild. Even mealworms will be a good source of protein, if you leave them for two or three weeks, they turn into little black beetles which is also excellent nutrition for fish. Mind you, they're not very big so you'll probably have to feed quite a few in a session.

Hey thanks for the advice I appreciate it. I bought a test kit today and I found out my ammonia and nitrites levels are both zero, but My nirates are through the roof according to the chart my nitrate level is at 160. I read to lower nitrate is doing regular water changes which I did today and remove all uneaten food and waste. Is there any other way I can lower my nitrate levels?

Hey how do I lower high levels of Nitrate?

i reccomend weekly waterchanges ...........for ever 30-40% should suffice

biggamehunter wrote:

i concur with bgh. as i have said in my previous post,
better do water change than be sorry while waiting for
the details of water parameters. now you will be on the
right track of happy fish keeping.