hi all,

its been a while since i was last on here, reason being i sold
my 4 foot tank and baby 0 a little while ago as our new home was being built...

since then i have purchased a 6 foot tank, and a pair of tiger
oscars that where handed in due to the owners tank breaking...

one is bigger than the other, but the owner of the store estimates
they are both around 2 years old....

they have been in my tank for the last week, water parameters are near perfect
and im pretty sure i am feeding them enough, we will get to this in a moment..

anyways, just then, i noticed they where nipping at each others sides,
then proceeded to 'lip lock'
i understand this could be courtship or fighting...

at first i thought they could have still been hungry after there feed of blood worms ten mins earlier, so i dropped a few pellets in there, this stopped them, but as aoon as they food was gone they started again, so i turned the lights off, which seems to have stopped them...

FOOD, frozen blood worms and cichlid food nightly, aprox 2 squares each..
pellets in the morning, all they can eat in about 1 minute...

just wanted to know if there was a certain way of telling which it was?
thanks in advance

Craig

Nice to see you again

This is not uncommon behaviour between two Oscars. Whether it is indeed courtship or aggression is difficult to say for sure. Normally if they are relatively okay with each other, they will often spend time together without any problems. If the Oscars are behaving aggressively towards each other, they will often flare gills and open their mouths very wide. If it is a courtship there will probably flareup every now and then and then they will go back to normal.

It's really is up to your discretion to decide whether they are fighting and causing each other injuries, or whether or not it is courtship and nothing to worry about .

ahh ok....

they did open there mouthes wide and flare there gills...
but atm theyre back to normal and rubbing up against each other like normal...


will keep an eye on them in the coming days, id hate to have to split them up if they srart causing injuries

I have never owned Oscars that don't occasionally have a little spat with each other.You will know if you have a serious aggression problem. The Oscars will be causing injuries to each other, you may find that the less dominant Oscar will hide away a lot. If they are hanging around with each other a lot of the time and appear to be quite friendly then I don't think you have too much of a problem. You could be very lucky and end up with a breeding pair.

this normal as OFL had said....it will not do much harm to the one being bullied.
however if attacking is no direction...meaning even the tail is being attack,
you need to be prepared with separator...or an option of another tank...