Oscars be maternal?

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Clostrangio

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Jan 31, 2012
206
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Hamilton Ontario canada
So I have an Oscar which is about 7 months old. I recently got another Oscar 2". They get along great! The little one is ALWAYS following the big one around and the big guy chases away any other fish that goes near the little one. Can anyone explain This to me? can oscars recognize younger oscars??


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I've heard of oscars selecting one or two feeder fish to keep around out of a batch. They just would eat every other feeder, but leave 1 or 2. When the owner put the second batch of feeders in the oscar would eat all of the new feeders but leave the original two that he spared. Apparently they just swam around the tank for the remainder of their relatively short lives. This being said, I've never experienced this myself.

I don't remember hearing about this oscar defending his pet feeder fish though. Maybe you have larger male who is trying to pair with a younger female?
 
I've heard of fish not eating certain feeder fish and just leaving them alone. I've also experienced something similar in my saltwater tank. My clown grouper ate 3 of the 4 damselfish we cycled the tank with and left 1 which was the second smallest alone. The grouper eats silversides that are larger than the damsel but has shown no agression towards the one that's still alive which is surprising. We'll see what happens when I have to go away for a week on Sunday though and won't be able to feed while I'm gone
 
RLHam3 said:
Maybe you have larger male who is trying to pair with a younger female?
Click to expand...

Oscars don't reach maturity until they are 10" though, around a year of age. Both those Oscars probably have no interest in breeding yet.
 
they will not pair off until mature. he might be just intrigued at one of his own kind.
 
Clostrangio said:
So I have an Oscar which is about 7 months old. I recently got another Oscar 2". They get along great! The little one is ALWAYS following the big one around and the big guy chases away any other fish that goes near the little one. Can anyone explain This to me? can oscars recognize younger oscars??


Sent from my iPhone using MonsterAquariaNetwork app
Click to expand...

ive had this happen with my parrot fish and firemouth, the parrot would protect the firemouth form anyone that came near it. Ive also had it happen with my oscars, i had two in my tank and they were best friends, always watching each others back and pushing anyone that went after the other away. Oscars have alot of personality, well some do.
 
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