Don't get comfortable with oscars
- Thread starter KNMG
- Start date
I've had 2 tiger oscars in a tank for over 10 years. They are now 14" and 12". 1t about 8" each they would fight terribly, tearing fins off, skin wounds, etc. They always healed, only once did I remove one of them for a few weeks to heal and stop the fighting. One time they knocked a powerhead off the uptake tube and it ended up pointing up, draining about half of my 150 gallon tan out of the top!
I've had many tankmates with them and never had any problem as long as the other fish was larger than their mouths! I have a 12" Pimelodus Cat in there with them and he gives them hell all of the time...circling around just to chase them. I now have the oscars, the pim cat, a Disticotus Lussoso, 3 Tinfoil Barbs (3+"), and 3 Lg. Silver Dollars, and a 6" Adonis Pleco.
I've had many tankmates with them and never had any problem as long as the other fish was larger than their mouths! I have a 12" Pimelodus Cat in there with them and he gives them hell all of the time...circling around just to chase them. I now have the oscars, the pim cat, a Disticotus Lussoso, 3 Tinfoil Barbs (3+"), and 3 Lg. Silver Dollars, and a 6" Adonis Pleco.
I had a similar experience years ago but it was between an Oscar (3") and a jaguar cichlid (2"). For the first month or so they were in the 125 I didn't see any aggression. Then one day I noticed the jaguar absolutely pummeling the oscar with no end in sight. I checked on the O before I went to work the next morning and it had almost no scales/fins and just looked terribly beaten up/scarred/etc.
I grabbed a tupperware bowl and a net and was contemplating flushing it before I went to work, but I didn't want to euthanize it. Then I remembered a friend at work had a 5 gallon setup in his office. I brought it in and used that as a hospital tank and treated it there for over a month. Eventually it fully healed, and even grew a little during that time. When I re-introduced it back into the 125g, the jaguar left it alone...I think it had grown big enough to not be bullied by it.
That Oscar died in April '08 after coming down with something...it was a solid 14"-15".
I grabbed a tupperware bowl and a net and was contemplating flushing it before I went to work, but I didn't want to euthanize it. Then I remembered a friend at work had a 5 gallon setup in his office. I brought it in and used that as a hospital tank and treated it there for over a month. Eventually it fully healed, and even grew a little during that time. When I re-introduced it back into the 125g, the jaguar left it alone...I think it had grown big enough to not be bullied by it.
That Oscar died in April '08 after coming down with something...it was a solid 14"-15".
Agreed, the NIGHT my convict fry started free-swimming, my oscar killed the pair of convicts and ate the fry. I even had to clean up some dead fry that had fallen under my pebble-gravel -.-
Convicts = strong for their size =/= invincible
Convicts = strong for their size =/= invincible
