Oscars are picky

[Lola]

My oscars will not eat goldfish. Could it be that they are used to eating rose reds? I'm thinking maybe the scales are discouraging them. The goldfish are about the same size as the rose reds maybe just a little bigger. Any ideas?

[OrionGirl]

Oscars are also cichlids. :)

The use of feeders is controversial, but most people agree the goldies are not the best food--they are not nutritious at all.

[Lola]

I know they arent the best food but it is what the very limited store we have close to our house had. They are well fed with a variety of foods but I was just curious as to why they spit out the goldfish and devour the rose reds

[echocharlie]

What little I know says that Cichlids get used to foods and tend to prefer the familiar. When I weened (sp?) my jd's off of goldfish flakes, I just didn't let em eat anything but the cichlid gold. They were stubborn and lasted about 5 days with the old food floating... I was more stubborn and it eventually paid off. Are you feeding them anything besides feeders? I also understand that feeders is an easy way to contaminate with diseases.

[delmore]

If you have a spare tank, consider raising your own feeders - mollies or guppies. This way you can provide a steady supply of disease free feeders. Using store bought feeder fish is risky. Also, use feeder fish as a treat, and pellets as the primary food.

[NikkO]

like what echocharlie said, a good way to get your oscar to switch to another type of food is by to not feed it for a while, then feed it what you want. I used to feed my Oscar Cichlid Staple a long time ago, but it took about a week or so to switch them to Cichlid Gold and now he cant get off it.:D

[daveedka]

If the goldfish aren't hasrmed when the oscars spit them out just leave them in the tank. eventually they'll dissapear. if you have the option of rosy reds, I'd use those instead of goldfish anyhow. If you are only feeding live fish as a treat, the size matters very little,

[gr8tpanther]

My oscar will literally eat ANYTHING, if it moves, he eats it... except my finger, he found out long ago that my finger isn't food and I found out that it hurts when he bites.

[daveedka]

My oscar will literally eat ANYTHING, if it moves, he eats it... except my finger

This has been my observation as well, but I don't ever give in to The occasional picky fish, I make them eat what I feed them. You might try mixing the rr's and the goldies and see if that brings him around, but as said before I am not a big fan of goldies to begin with so If it were my tank I'd stick to guppies or rr's as treats. You may also want to try ghost shrimp, they are sold as feeders pretty cheap many places, and the oscar will love them

[gr8tpanther]

Try frozen larvae and frozen blood worms, these are also something that oscars love to eat.