is breeding oscars difficult?

[le patron]

i love oscars, im getting a juvie or two tomorrow and i wanted to know if they are a relatively easy species to breed or not. thanks for any help

 

[le patron]

i have some more questions. when do they usually reach maturity and how long are they when they do. another imporant question of mine is what will the offspring look like if one parent is albino and the other one is regular tiger? will some be albino some be tiger?

 

[ProblEmZ]

Have you used the search function? There's a lot of information about oscars on this site.

 

[koop171]

Why do you want to breed them? there are so many as is do you plan on trying to become a breeder and sell or do you just want a mass collection.

Also another thing to look into is that if you bought all your Os from the same place at the same time there is a good possiblity that they are brother and sister. In which case they are not good breedeing stock and could have some bad birth defects.

 

[mundegus]

could have bad birth defects but very unlikely. ive seen very little problems myself with this. i think it has more become a superstition as we reflect to much on human interbreeding. i'd say you'd be fine. ive seen oscars, convics, pleco's and even arowana's at my lfs whove come from the same family of spawned fish and have spawned healthy young themselves.

i may be wrong though but just talking from experience.

i breed mice in a controlled breeding program for my pet snake in which ive done a few interbreeding with a couple of mice brother+ sister, and had no problem with their growth or the snake who eats them but ive only done it a few times and i usually breed offspring from the 2 families i have in seperate tanks.

 

[le patron]

Have you used the search function? There's a lot of information about oscars on this site.

have you ever considered that i don't have that kind of time?
on a lighter note, thanks all you guys for all your help. ill see if i can purchase two juvie oscars from different stores then. thanks again
ONE MORE THING!! is it possible to tell the difference between male and female at young age? if not how about old age?

 

[le patron]

BUMP
also to answer your question i just want my own little stock of oscars are they good parents?

 

[xFLEAxx]

Oscars are almost imposible to sex from what I have heard but if you could get them to breed that would be awesome

 

[ctoychik]

from what i have seen and heard, they are quite easy to breed IF you get two opposite sex (roll the dice i think, but people say they can be sexed according to their body shape and all - i don't believe personally).

If you really wanna breed, you will need to get a bunch. once you determine which is which then you can get rid of the excess.

Sexual maturity comes quite early - just feed them well. Errr, you will need to remove the "eggs" once they are out - otherwise eaten. This means that you must have a "hatchery" with clean, oxygenated, flowing water.

Good luck. I never got around to breeding them

 

[I<3fish]

have you ever considered that i don't have that kind of time?
on a lighter note, thanks all you guys for all your help. ill see if i can purchase two juvie oscars from different stores then. thanks again
ONE MORE THING!! is it possible to tell the difference between male and female at young age? if not how about old age?

First of all, if you have enough time to breed oscars and reply posts to your thread then you have enough time to use the search function. Second of all, interbreeding should not happen try and get about 5 each from a different store/breeder/importer. Second get a BIG tank to grow out all of them (around 150-250 gallons since they are aggressive) to sexual maturity, this usually takes about a year to do, after they grow that size there should be at least one pair (unless you are unlucky) after that the breeding is fairly easy. Just research how they breed (like most cichlids a large flowerpot or piece of slate works well and do frequent water changes and feed a lot of healthy foods krill, silversides and other seafood.) after that you're pretty much good to go.
P.S never consider inbreeding unless the inbred young are food for others.
Wish you luck,
CJ