Hey! I'm Jade and today I've bought my first pair of 3 inch albino tiger oscars and after reading this site for top tips and advice I've decided to join! I guess i'll explain why I'm here

My Dad and I have always kept fish for most of our lives, mainly cold water and the odd tropical tank, but we've never had oscars before because we never had the facilities to accommodate them sufficiently. We decided to get a pair of oscars in our new 5ft tank with an fx5 filter (as recommended) as various family members have kept oscars as well as breeding other tropical fish and they remain a firm family favorite.

Personally I love oscars because they have so much personality. I've had these two for less than twenty four hours and already I can tell the differences in temperaments, would you believe? haha. They've settled in really well and they've had their first feed in their new tank and they seemed very settled.

I would appreciate any advice you can give me in raising oscars, and if any one can explain to me why my oscars follow each other around the tank all day and are not separated for less than 5 seconds at a time would greatly help! Does this mean I may have a male and a female? I know it's impossible to tell but I'd like some indication as to why they are acting like this!

Thank you x

First, welcome to the site! You'll find a ton of useful information here. Second, I'm going to let the really smart people answer your questions! Third, we'd love to see pics of your set up - we love pics!

Brooksie

welcome to the community

The same species of fish will often stick together. It isn't necessarily an indication that you have a male and female.

Hey thanks for the welcome and thank you for the answer OFL - We were just worried we might end up with them breeding etc.

Brooksie - Photos of my setup:

i31.tinypic.com/f9qm4m.jpg < the tank before we put the water/marine sand in
i30.tinypic.com/29vc4df.jpg < the oscars

I don't have any pics yet of the filter etc, it's just a hagen fluval fx5 paired with the dual filer that came with it with built in heater etc. You'll have to forgive my lack of knowledge on the technical side of things, my dad deals with all that

Very nice Lutino's you've got there... and the tank looks awesome!

Hey there and welcome to OFL!
Indeed i noticed the difference with other fish i kept from when i first got Oscars.
Oscars are a whole different ballgame!
They will keep amazing you.
I read loads of stories of o's moving gravel, but mine never did.
Until this week after 1,5 years the couple of them started moving the gravel and digging pits...
And i'm glued to the tank, again.

welcome to the site. you Oscars will love their new home.

Welcome to OFL its perfectly normal for your fish to follow each other around. I have a pair of baby Oscars and they do exactly the same thing...after all safety in numbers.

Thanks everyone again for the welcome, lovely forums these are!

I'm sure they will keep amazing me! They're showing so much character already.

The only problem we're having now is picking suitable tank mates. Because they're only small and the tanks quite big they look a bit lost. We're planning on getting some bogwood to lower the PH but it's currently getting all the tourine (spelling?) out and in a few week we've been told we can get some cat fish because the tank will have more bacteria in it. Any advice/tips when choosing things like bogwood, tank mates? We've spoken to some pet shops who stock oscars but they really don't have a clue!

Hi jade

Hi Jade and Welcome!!! Those babies sure are cute!

Hey Marcus, nice to meet you

Thanks Nicki nice to meet you!


I have a huge update on my tank today. I've finally found a red tiger oscar in my area. He's about two inch bigger than the two that I already had and he was living with the same size as my two perfectly fine, as well as the third oscar that I was going to get yesterday with the two I already had (so all three albino tigers are from the same batch) so the guy at the suppliers advised us that it would probably be ok with the three 8-10cm albinos and luckily he is!

Also, there's this blue clawed cray fish that was living with the oscars and because our tank is sufficient we bought that as well. At first we were quite wary but the cray fish has lived with oscars it's entire life (the big red tiger oscar we have as well as two others) with no problems and at the moment the three albinos aren't even bothered with it. And also we have just bought a medium sized Sail-Fin gibbicep plec which was also living with the oscars it's entire life.

We're not going to buy any more fish now as we're aware that the oscars will grow substantially and we've got a nice set up at the moment.