new to the hobby and forum and have a feeding question

Personally, I wouldn't use live feeders, especially minnows because of the risk of introducing disease or parasites. Commercially prepared foods are adequate for healthy fishes, (there are a few exceptions). When the fish get larger perhaps a pellet food, which is more concemtrated than flake. I feed a mix of various flake and pelleted food,as well as live food, such as daphnia, white worms, bloodworms, as well as lettuce and other greens, depending on the type of fish. What type(s) of SA cichlids do you have?

i have 3 red devils, a tiger oscar, and the other im not sure. looks like a convict almost. he's a dark gray with very dark stipes, blue spots infront of the front fins, and the top fin is black, turning to blue with orange tips...not sure what it is.

First thing first find yourself a new pet store. An oscar itself should not be kept in anything smaller then a 55g tank. Adding 4 other fishes to the mix in such a small tank is just asking for trouble. I'm also not a fan of feeder fishes, I usually just feed my RD pellets.

why is 5 fish to many for a 47 gal? *** looked at other tanks on here, in similar size, that have way more fish in them that i do. why should an oscar be in a 55 gal or larger tank?

Oscar arent very friendly fishes. And a 1 foot big oscar in a 47 gallon tank will be trouble for all other fish in the tank with it. Also tanks dont go by how many fish you have. It goes by the bioload it can handle. Since your fish can become really big and messy your tank wont be able to handle its bioload which will cause alot of problems. Unless you want to be doing water changes everyday.

sorry if this seems like a dumb question, but im new to the hobby but what do you mean when you say "bioload?"

thanks, corey

Bioload to me in plain in simple terms is fish waste. So urine and poop. For example your one oscar has a big bioload since its a messy eater and it extracts waste alot into the water. Where some people keeping 30 smaller fish will have the same bioload as your oscar but instead of one big fish they have 30 smaller fish in the same size tank.

thanks for the info. is a recommended to have a placosthumus (spelling?) in the tank as well?

As mentioned, that tank is to small to hold all those fish for very long. You have been the victim of bad advice. A common pleco will also get too big for that tank, and is also a very messy fish if fed properly. They really have no business in the average tank.