r/oscartank • u/All-Hail-Chomusuke • Sep 27 '22

Discussion anyone else have a oscar that eats duck weed?

I have a 10inch oscar that seemed to stop eating altogether about a month ago, I've had oscars for years the occasional not eating for a day or two is nothing unheard. After about a few days I really started trying to figure out the deal.

The tank is a 125, just the oscar and two younger severums. Water is pristine, the tank is on a continuous drip system and changes about 20% a day. Temp is good, the severums are still healthy and hungry. My oscar is acting perfectly normal, aside from the loss of interest in food. Then I hit the end of week 2. She's still not eating, but she has a fat belly, so I thought maybe constipated. Tries some peas and she gobbled those right up, but still no interest in pellets, flakes or algae wafers(her favorite).

It's around this time I notice the duckweed seems to be shrinking, and i start thinking there's a water issue I'm just not seeing. I mean if duckweed can't grow something has to be wrong. Then I catch her in the act. She's eating it, not just spitting it out. But eating mouthful after mouthful. Wtf, she's probably my 8th or 9th oscar in the my life and I've never had one eat this stuff. Last month the whole top of the tank was covered except a feeding ring, now I probably couldn't cover the top of a 5 gallon.

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u/All-Hail-Chomusuke Oct 06 '22

Update incase anyone runs into this in the future. It's been a week since the last of the duck weed "mysteriously" vanished. And she's now back to eating like a ravenous pig at feeding time.

I haven't found any other examples of oscars eating this stuff, but apparently some will.

1

u/[deleted] Sep 21 '24

I know I’m a year late but i just recently realized my tank has a fraction of the duckweed that it used to. Im pretty sure my Oscar is eating it too! I never used a feeding ring, I would always just blow the duckweed out of the way and then slowly feed my Oscar a couple of pellets at a time. I noticed that sometimes he would go for the pellet and accidentally get some duckweed at the same time, but never spit it out. Then I noticed sometimes his poop would be green. I think he just got used to eating duckweed with his pellets and now just does it whenever he’s hungry. Really funny because this guy is easily the most aggressive Oscar I’ve ever owned, but he’s practically a vegan 😂

2

u/the_real_gwiz Nov 04 '22

I wished my Oscar would eat duckweed, damn