Hi all,

My name is Kell and I live in Queensland Australia. We have one Oscar, an albino named Bruce. My husband named him after the shark on the movie Finding Nemo; the whole fish are friends not food thing was his thinking. Needless to say it did not work and Bruce consumed one of his tank mates after a couple of months. We moved his other tank mate out and he has remained on his own ever since.

Bruce is about 9 months old now and is very much my fish. I am the only one in the family who can feed him without him attempting to take a bite out of a finger or two and the only one who can safely put their hands in the tank at all. lol...

Recently he has started some strange behaviours whenever I am wearing patterned clothing. He puffs his gills out, opens his mouth as wide as he can and even rushes at the tank wall on occassions. At first hubby thought I was imagining things until I tested it out the other night. I had on a plain coloured top and held a purple and black paisely print top behind my back and stood in front of the tank. Bruce swam over and then up to the top as he normally does when he wants more food. As soon as i held the patterned top up in front of me he puffed himself up and opened his mouth. I put the top back behind my back and after a minute he settled down. I repeated the proceedure with the same results. It doesn't seem to matter what the pattern is or the colours, he doesn't like it.

Anyone got any ideas? Is this normal?

We also have four cats, two black, two ginger. He hates one of the ginger cats with a passion and can tell the difference between them. Before we put him into the large tank that has a hood, the cats would often sit on the top of the tank and the only time he reacted was when this one particular ginger cat was up there. He would jump at the glass and try to bite him. Even now if he sees that cat he reacts the same way. Again is this normal?

I look forward to hearing peoples thoughts etc.
Cheers Kell

Welcome to Oscar fish lover

Firstly, fish do see in color, if they didn't, what would be the point of them being all these fantastic colors that by around the world.

Fish used colors for various reasons,they often change color if showing aggression. It could well be that your Oscar is seeing your colored tops as some kind off threat and this is why he is behaving this way. You could try wearing different tops and see if his behavior changes. Try and determine which clothing has no effect, and which does. Then you could wear clothes accordingly

Hi thanks for the welcome. I had figured Bruce could see in colour, especially when we realised he can tell the diference between two ginger tabby cats who are almost identical but are a shade a part in colour.

I have tried a few different tops/colours and it is only patterned tops and it does not seem to matter what colours. I've tried flowers, paisely prints, stripes even a grey and black zebra stripe. so long as it's patterned, he don't like it! He show's no noticeable reaction to plain coloured tops, not even red.

He's a very entertaining fish, I can spend 1/2 hour or more watching him rearrange his plastic plants (I learnt very quickly not put real plants in with him, lol) and trying to bury the toy diver. He has one particular corner he likes to put the plants in. Then I go and put them all back and he spends the next couple of days putting them back in the corner. He doesn't seem to mind though and swims around my hands while I put the plants back.

Cheers Kell

Oscar definitely like rearranging their tank, many new people to Oscars realize this after they've spent ages making the tank look pretty.

Oscars are very sociable creatures and certainly don't mind interacting with with their owners

firstly welcome to the site.

from my experience colour definetly plays a role with oscars. my tigers tend to chase my red oscar all over the tank they dont hurt him just chase. the funny thng is that they mostly ignore the albino tiger that lives there as well. the only reason i can think of is because of the colour of the red.

as for redecorating i just place the plants where they move them to and they pretty much leave them alone now. the way i look at it is that its their house and they can decorate it as they like.

welcome to the site.

it would make some good viewing to see your oscar reacting to different clothing.

a vid would be brilliant

Colour plays a part in choice of pairing off with a mate for sure too. I had 2 white tigers together, I then added a male that I rescued, a black tiger. He paired off with one of the whites(female) and was happy for some time. i then took on another rescured black tiger. This was a female.almost instantly the 2 black tigers paired off together leaving the white alone. I was very surprised and now beleave there is no love with fish. Just a matter of carry on there strain?? Not sure if this is common but it seemed to happen without any care for the other white.

Thanks for that. Just this morning I noticed Bruce has decided to change the spot the plants and diver belong. He's now busy excavating a bloody great hole in the sand up that end of the tank! lol... My son has been doing a few more experiments with colour and patterns and he found out that Bruce doesn't react to blue and white checkerboard patterns.

Cheers Kell