I spoke to my friends that are giving me the 6ft tank yesterday and apparently things are progressing and it shouldn't be too long before the tank is mine (the current inhabitants need rehousing first)! I've kept telling them not to worry as there is no hurry but of course I am dying to get hold of it

In the meantime I have set up a small tank and added 6 female guppies to it in order to provide some live food for the Oscars. We now have four babies Although I have kept fish on and off for years I've never had any guppies and I have to say I'm enthralled, they are really enchanting little fish. I've long wanted to experiment with genetics as it's a subject that interests me but the problem has been what to do with the resulting fish. Now that I am going to have a pair of Oscars that problem is solved

It's been useful to go through the set up process again and I'm monitoring the water quality daily at the moment and getting use to doing the water tests and evaluating the results again. I've forgotten so much and such a lot has changed since I last kept fish, I think it has been about 15 years since I last had tropicals.

I've also dug out a 3ft tank that I have had stashed for years just incase I decided to keep fish again and have tested it for water tightness. It's fine so now I need to sort out some equipment for it. This will house the young guppies for now.

Any advice on the best way to source the Oscars when the tank is ready? I think I would like Red Tigers but I'm not sure on all the colour options and how they mature.

Firstly, I would appeal to you to not feed the guppies to the Oscars. I know that Oscars would happily eat live fish in the wild, butthere is no need to feed live fish to yours O's in captivity, there are plenty of other foods that are much better for your Oscar, enjoy your gupppies and give them a nice life in your cash. Oscar's will not necessarily eat small fish straight away, this will result in the small fish being extremely stressed due to the fact they are in a tank with large predatory fish that they know you will want to eat them. When I feed live food to my Oscars, this is normally in the form of meal worms, beetles and crickets, these are much better than small fish that don't contain much nutrients.

If you've ever seen the way Oscar's feed, they are very adapt at taking food from the surface. This will happen in the wild, especially during the rainy season when lots of insects end up in the water.

As for sourcing your Oscars, it is really a case of what your fish store have available. Some fish stores will order in the fish especially for you. Also, there are various online stores that sell fish by mail order. You may be able to get the fish you want this way.

completely agree with the gaffer! enjoy the guppies, there lovely fish, the more tanks the better

Matt

Guppies will not be the only food the Oscars get but I will do my best to minimise any stress to them. Although I don't relish the idea of feeding live fish, I don't place any lower value on insects or believe that they will not feel stress at been fed to the Oscars. My fish have always had some live food whether it was fish or daphnia, my understanding is that live food is more important to Oscars than many others. Fish food is made of fish and other creatures who die at some point in the process of making it so this is one of the reasons I am not overly troubled by feeding live fish. We did have four baby Guppies in the tank the other day who seemed to be doing a good job of evading the adults. Not good enough though it seems, as yesterday we were down to one and today I haven't seen any, it's just the way it goes.

Just my opinion of course and I would hate to start an argument on the board but it is always interesting to read what others think.

As hopefully I will have the Oscars for a long time I would rather wait and get fish that I really want rather than just taking whatever is available

askhammatt wrote:



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