assorted questions

[caz]

1. anyone feed their oscars and human food? like peas or something.
2. can anyone give me some pointers on convicts? im raising up 2 of them, and they are my first ones.
3. is a sand bottom better than a gravel bottom?

[ChilDawg]

1.) Peas are okay for Oscars as an occasional treat.

3.) What are you keeping? If you don't keep something that will stir up the entirety of the substrate, sand is a bad option as it will compact and quickly obtain a very anaerobic layer.

[caz]

so a no go with oscars then huh? well basicly what im trying to do is make my tank a little nicer. right now i just have the standard pebbles, but want something that looks a little nicer. is there like a better homes and fishtanks thing or something? i want to decorate my tank a little better, but i dont want to shell out for the overpriced castle and such. thanx

[ChilDawg]

There are lot of sites on this--Google "shale in fishtanks" or "slate in fishtanks".

A lot of aquarists build large and elaborate rockwork for their fish, and it is a lot more fun and cost effective than the castle. Or, you could go with pre-made, artificial, rockwork so that it is lighter and less effort is required to create a work of art.

[dbcb314]

i believe gravel is better, but i have friends who use sand. it is hard to clean, becaouse if you siphon it it gets sucked up.

[scott]

I would not recomend a sand substrate for SA/CA cichlids as they dig and it will turn in to one big mess. At one point in time I was thinking of doing a mixture of sand an pebbles but after looking around I decided to just use the pebbles. I feed my oscar peas, spinach, zucchini (although he some times spits that out) as well as raw shrimp and cut up bass that I catch in my uncle's pond (the bass that is the shrimp comes from the grocery store). This is in addition to a variety of pellets. I make a big tuperware bucket with Hikari Gold, Carnivore Pellets, Spirulina pellets and Tetra Cichlid Sticks and mix them all together. As far as rocks you can get them cheap at a Lowe's or Home Depot or even cheaper at a wholesale landscape supply store. I picked up one hundred an fifty pounds of gravel for about four bucks and the shale is ten cents a pound. Compare that to the LFS or home depot.;) For convicts I would give them a fifty five for a mating pair with some silver dollars or giant danios as target fish. You could keep them in a smaller tank but I think after a while the male would kill the female. Just my two cents I have never had a breeding pair of convicts. I had a male and he absolutely destroyed my 90 and had a JD and a Blackbelt cowering in the corner.

[dbcb314]

my friend has oscars with his sand

for convicts, i have seen a breeding pair in a 10 gal, but i would recommend at least a 29. just my thoughts