hi there i am new to the forum but i have been reading on here for a while.

i have had many aquariums in my day including an amazing 100 gal reaf tank.

now i have a 90 gal. tank with 5 oscars. i do weekly water changes of 50% the talk temp is 78. for filtration i have 2 aqua clear 70 on. i know i am over stocked by the recomended tank sizes. i will likely wait until the get larger and get rid of 2 of them if need be.

the oscars are small, about 2.5 inches and 4 or the 5 are gettin along great and eating like pigs as they should. one of them is being a lil baby and not eating at all. he doesnt apear to get picked on or anything he is simply not eating he wont even come to the top when i am droping pellets in. i also feed blood worms once in a while and he wong go for those either.

should i get some sinking pellets to get doun to the bottom where he hides out or what do i do?

First of all, test the water for ammonia, nitrite and nitrate, enter your pH at the same time. It's always a good idea to check the water conditions if the fish is behaving strangely. Have a good look at the fish that isn't eating, is it breathing heavily at all? is it a lot less inactive than the rest of the Oscars? It could well be that it is a little shy to come to the surface, they are quite small. When you feed your Oscars, are the lights on? if so, try turning the lights off with just the room lights on, wait for around 10 or 20 minutes and then see if he will eat. If the tank is not so brightly lit, he may feel a little more comfortable and not so nervous. It's worth a try. If he won't eat bloodworm that is sinking, I very much doubt he will eat any other sinking food, bloodworm is something that all fish love

acctually my lights on the tank are very bright, i need to look into getting some that are more dim, is this possible with flourescent lighting? i will try the no lights feeding. the oscar is a lot less active then the rest of the oscars. the other ones swim around hapily all day while the tiger just sits by a peice of drift wood all day. and the blood worms that i have been feeding are dried ones and just float on top. hopefully with a combination of frozen blood worms from the reef tanks food and no lights i can get him eating a bit and eventually start acting like the rest of the crew.

thanks
Barna

I feed my fish on frozen bloodworm. Honestly I defrost it first and it just floats through the whole tank so that all the fish get a chance to eat

Try getting some earthworms, chop them up into bite size pieces and throw about 15 pieces in at once all around the tank so that the one not eating gets a chance to get some

Oscars really love earthworms, i reckon that if they could choose their food they would pick worms every time

thanks for all the help guys but when i returned home after gettingthis advice my little tiger was wedged in some rocks, dead. its sad, but if he we going to be a little pussy all the time then he was likely eventually going to get bullied and die anyway.

sorry to hear about that, that's just life unfortunately

Sorry you lost a fish but it happens, it really gutting when they are big and they die

sorry to hear about your loss, maybe he was not destined to survive

yea thanks guys. i hadnt had the time to get attached to him so it wasnt bad. im sure if i lost a 10 inch fish that i had for a year or 2 it would be different