my mistake was trying to keep anything with my oscar . . . for a while he shared a tank with two pictus cats . . . then one day, out of the blue he tried to eat one, started choking and spit it out; unfortunately, he killed it
I figured he learned his lesson, but about a week later the other pictus disappeared, and the oscar looked really, really ill . . . by the next day, he had died. I figure he must have eaten the 2nd pictus, and the spines on it killed him from the inside . . . pretty horrible way to go
he was a beautiful fish, but I have never owned an oscar since . . .