OSCARS......

madroosta

madroosta

small fry
Oct 2, 2006
123
0
16
48
united kingdom
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?
 
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!
 
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.
 
liv2padl said:
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.
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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.
 
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.
 
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.
 
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.
 
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. 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.
 
Shocker6966 said:
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. 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.
Click to expand...

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!
 
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