View Full Version : OSCARS......
madroosta
03-12-2007, 7:10 AM
Hi gang, just inherited 2 oscars, round about 9-10 inches a piece. Beautiful looking fish. The previous owner had them for about 1 year. They like to swim around together but on saturday they decided to get territorial with each other and decided to do a hell of a lot of lip locking and pushing eraxh other back n forth. Is this natural? Basically i bought my new tank off ebay but didn't realise the fish CAME WITH IT AND KNOW NOTHING ABOUT THEM. nOW I MUST PUT MY OTHER FISH ON HOLD AS THE OSCARS I'M SURE WILL JUST EAT THEM!! CAN ANYONE HELP ME PLEASE?
Rallysman
03-12-2007, 7:12 AM
They may be establishing territories. Have they started cleaning or moving rocks?
madroosta
03-12-2007, 7:23 AM
no not yet, they are very chilled out. I think they are de-stressing actually as i think they were a little traumatized on their journey back to me. Both oscars and the 2 plecs miraculously survived. So i think they are finding their feet so to speak. So what they actually start moving things around then? lol excellent!
liv2padl
03-12-2007, 7:24 AM
what size tank are they in? if it's smaller than about 100 gallons, you may continue to see this behaviour until one get's severely injured. if the tank is large enough, adding some other fish may be a good way to distract them. adding some 'structure' to the tank, in the way of rocks and/or driftwood can help, particularly if it's in the middle of the tank and blocks 'line of sight'. this allows each fish to create a territory out of the way of the other.
madroosta
03-12-2007, 7:35 AM
what size tank are they in? if it's smaller than about 100 gallons, you may continue to see this behaviour until one get's severely injured. if the tank is large enough, adding some other fish may be a good way to distract them. adding some 'structure' to the tank, in the way of rocks and/or driftwood can help, particularly if it's in the middle of the tank and blocks 'line of sight'. this allows each fish to create a territory out of the way of the other.
they are in a 6 x 2 1/2 x 2 tank. Which is about 150 GLNS ?? Not too sure. wHAT FISH CAN YOU ADD THO? i HAVE FISH I BOUGHT THE TANK FOR BUT KNOW I'M GONNA HAVE PROBS ADDING THEM. SO AS THEY HAVE BEEN SWIMMING IN ALMOST A SPOONS POSITION PRIOR TO THIS WOULD THEY NOT BE A FAMILIARISED PAIR? I CHECKED THIS MORNING AGAIN AND THEY WERE TOGETHER AGAIN.
danzig
03-12-2007, 8:58 AM
their most likely establishing their new territories, being in a new tank and all.
give it a few days, and they should be fine. If they continue to fight or aggression increases you may need to divide/seperate them.
tarheels910
03-12-2007, 10:08 AM
What kind of fish do you plan on adding? If they are tropical like tetras and guppies, you will need to get rid of the oscars. You MIGHT be able to add another large cichlid. A JD or Maguanese(Jaguar) around 6-7 inches may be fine. Since you have 2 large common plecos i think your tank is stocked. If you get rid of one or both of them and add more hiding places, you can get a JD or Jaguar.
Subliminal
03-12-2007, 10:31 AM
If they came together in the tank, you sure they aren't..you know...the love that dare not speak it's name?
Oscars like to eat whatever fits into their mouths. Other than that, they are really a pretty unagressive fish. If you have smaller, more aggressive fish, they can certainly cow those big ol' oscars.
Shocker6966
03-12-2007, 1:31 PM
Concurrent to the lip locking, are they looking for a flat piece of rock? Do they have little love bumps forming around their poo-holes? If so, is one pointing north and one pointing south, one blunt and one pointy? If so, you may have some more fish in your tank sooner than you expect.
Also of interested, I read an article yesterday on forced pairing by adding a dither fish. (http://www.aqualandpetsplus.com/Cichlid,%20Dither%20Fish.htm) This could potentially put an end to the oscars aggression by forcing them to pair together against fish of another species. I agreed that a jag or a jack are probably your best options.
madroosta
03-12-2007, 2:16 PM
Concurrent to the lip locking, are they looking for a flat piece of rock? Do they have little love bumps forming around their poo-holes? If so, is one pointing north and one pointing south, one blunt and one pointy? If so, you may have some more fish in your tank sooner than you expect.
Also of interested, I read an article yesterday on forced pairing by adding a dither fish. (http://www.aqualandpetsplus.com/Cichlid,%20Dither%20Fish.htm) This could potentially put an end to the oscars aggression by forcing them to pair together against fish of another species. I agreed that a jag or a jack are probably your best options.
WELL I'M GOING TO BE DECORATING TONIGHT SO I CAN KINDA LAY IT OUT WHEREVER MAY SUIT THEM I GUESS, I HAVEN'T LOOKED FOR ANY SO I WOULDN'T HAVE NOTICED BUT I MOST CERTAINLY WILL TONIGHT! ALSO WHAT IS THE BEST TEMP FOR OSCARS?
THANK YOU FOR YOUR HELP BY THE WAY!
Target fish for oscars include silver dollars, bucktoothed tetras, convicts and giant danios. I tried silver dollars for a while since my two baby oscars kept fighting and it worked. The silver dollars took a bit of damage but after a day or so but they were too fast for the Oscars once they realized running was their best defense. Your Oscars will get bored with chasing target fish quickly but will continue to do so occasionally. With other fish mentioned above, that was just what I heard from other people. One thing about silver dollars is that they will eat your plants.
Also, ideal temperate for Oscars should be between 74-78 although there will be slight variations if you look around.
I forgot...If you house convicts with oscars, make sure you put in only one single convict or both convicts have to be the same sex because they will become very agressive when they mate.
Shocker6966
03-12-2007, 5:54 PM
I forgot...If you house convicts with oscars, make sure you put in only one single convict or both convicts have to be the same sex because they will become very agressive when they mate.
Convicts are just aggressive period. I keep a lone pink convict in my tank and he's constantly battling it with well, everything. He has some particularly viscous battles with my JD who is twice his size.
madroosta
03-13-2007, 6:54 AM
ONE OF MY OSCARS LAST NIGHT WAS TRYING TO MOVE A BIG BIT OF FLAT ROCK AFTER HAVING ANOTHER LIPLOCK SESSION WITH ITS MATE. VERY ENTERTAINING TO WATCH!!
Shocker6966
03-13-2007, 12:17 PM
Sounds like you're gonna have some more fish in the tank very soon! (the flat rock is an indication - she's setting it up to lay her eggs on.)
madroosta
03-14-2007, 5:15 AM
Sounds like you're gonna have some more fish in the tank very soon! (the flat rock is an indication - she's setting it up to lay her eggs on.)
woohoo!!!!!