Hi all,

I hope someone can help me, I have two oscars about 7" which I have had for about 9 months, one albino and one red, both great looking fish.

Lately they seem to be aggresive towards each other, the most common is facing each other with mouths open wide a lunging back and forth.

Does anyone know if they are fighting for dominance in the tank or whether they might be in lurve!

If they are fighting there anything I can do to stop them besides seperate tanks which seems a little elaborate?

Any comments would be great thanks.

Pete

welcome to Oscar fish lover

I don't think your Oscars are quite mature yet. It could well be that they are approaching maturity, breeding Oscars will perform this type of behavior but I shouldn't read too much into it just a moment.

Every single Oscar I've ever had have done this at some stage. The rule of thumb is if they aren't injuring each other, you really don't have anything to worry about. However, injuries do often occur, some of them seem quite bad, but that isn't always a sign of serious aggression, Oscars can sometimes just be rough. In many cases, the most severe injuries occur when they swim into rocks or ornaments in the tank.

It'll be up to your discretion to decide whether the aggression is so bad, you need to split them up. It doesn't sound very bad at the moment, I would just observe them for the time being and don't worry too much at the moment.

My oscars about the same age do this too they also empty all the gravel fromone half of the tank but they never injure each other unless like OFL said they swim into a rock. (I actually remove all sharp ornaments and injuries stopped happening even thougbh they still 'fight')

Thanks very much guys that seems to tally with what I read on the rest of the website, don't seem to be hurting each other so should be ok.

Thanks again.