I'd like to start by saying that I inherited my problem oscar from my son, who left home a couple of months ago. He left behind his 5" fish in a tank measuring 80cm x 40cm x 30cm, which I think is about 22 gallons, as he couldn't fit the tank into his flat. I can see from this forum that we have the common problem that the tank isn't big enough for the fish. Can anyone offer the oscar a good home - we live in Kent, England, about 40 miles from London? He seems happy & healthy at the moment. We have thought about getting a bigger tank for him (the oscar not my son), but it is very expensive. I'm not sure how much time we've got before this situation becomes critical. Advice would be welcome as to the dimensions of the tank we'd need to get if we can't re-home him. Thanks for your time.

hi Carol, welcome to Oscarfishlover

Unfortunately, it's going to be rather expensive and time-consuming to give Oscar a suitable home to live in for the rest of its life. You would need an absolute minimum of 55 gallons and some good filtration to go along with it. To buying new, you're looking at several hundred pounds, of course you could probably get the equipment secondhand for considerably less. If you're not committed to keeping the Oscar, then do the Oscar and yourselves a really big favour and find an aquatic centre that will take Oscar off your hands. I think that is probably the kindest thing you can do as it does sound like the tank that he is living in at the moment is totally unsuitable. I would also recommend you carrying out a water change for the time being. A 5 1/2 inch Oscar living in a small tank like that won't take very long to turn the water to crap. This will obviously compromise the fishes health. Before you carry out any water changes, please get yourself a water conditioner that removes elements such as chlorine and chloride. I would recommend Waterlife Haloex, this stuff goes a long way, 10mm does something like 50 gallons I think. At least you could make Oscar comfortable until you decide what you are going to do.

if you decide you want to keep Oscar, please tell us and we will give you some good advice on where to go from next.

Hello, thank you for your reply. I took your advice and rang the local aquatic centre, who agreed to take our fish. I wouldn't have minded getting a bigger tank, but we don't really have the space, and I don't think we could have kept up with the maintenance. We took Oscar to the aquatic centre this afternoon. It was a hard decision, as I'd got quite attached to him - but it was the best thing for him, and your advice pushed me into what I knew deep down was the right way forward. Thanks again.

that's good news, o will be much happier with somebody who has probably got the correct size tank.