Hi,

I have had my oscars for 6 Months One Red 5" and One Tiger about 7".
I hope that they are a pair all the signs are there but I still
have an element of doubt.

On the whole they are quite calm, although some fights occur, bumping, lip locking and digging in the gravel "hopefully a nest.

Last night they had one hell of a fight almost breaking the heater
and the tiger has quite a nasty scrape on top of the head.
Should I let it heal naturally or add some sort of treatment? [img]

I am happy with how they are behaving its seems quite natural but I need to know what else I can do to encourage breading.

Any help or advise would be great thanks ::woohoo:

Hi Nick,

First of all, I wouldn't be so sure that's a mated pair you have there based upon how you described them. I can only base this in part on my own two mated Oscars who seem to have paired off quite nicely in the last month. They do not seem to fight at all ever and are almost inseperable in the tank, often swinmmimg side by side and often very close to each other. Of course, when they paired off it was right after a huge water change (I think they like that) and they went through all the motions of curling and favoring a clean spot on the aquarium floor. They are too young to actually mate and lay eggs but I am 100% confident these two are a mated pair.

As for the injuries? I would recommend you do partial water changes at least once if not twice a week. No meds should be needed but you can consider adding a normal dose of "stress coat" to the tank which treatsd and dechlorinates the water but more importantly helps to replace the natural slime coating on fish and often contains aloe vera which is like a natural liquid bandage to promote rapid healing. Keeping the water clean and refreshed is probably the more important of the two for sure.

How big is your aquarium? Are there other fish in there too? Possibly another fish is causing the heightened level of aggression and activity.

I have two Oscars (one Red 12", one Albino Red 10") in a 125g with quite a few tankmates including, two Jack Dempsey's 10", a Red Devil 8", a Snow King Pleco 14", a Clown Knife 12", a shoal of Silver Dollars 3-4", and a Silver Arowana 22". Every now and then right after the lights go out there would be an all out melee with water being throw across the room and even onto the ceiling! Of course when things like that happen, fish are going to get injured. The advice about the water changes and the Stress Coat in sound. My Red Oscar especially has had large chunks of his flesh flapping of us his head before. The injuries always heal so long as they water is of high enough quality so that the wound does not become infected. In my case, the cause of most of the violence was the sudden changes from light to dark. It appears the Cichilds have trouble adjusting to the darkness and become stressed. The Clown Knife on the other hand loved the dark and moved out of hiding immediately after shutting off the lights, scaring the other fish. By turning the tank lights off only with the room completely lit, the violence stopped. Eventually I had to more the Red Devil though be cause of it's extremely territorial behavior.

MNeilssen wrote:


You better be careful there. If they spash too much more water out there won't be anything left in that tank BUT fish!

(That sounds like an awfull lot of fish for a 125 G Aquarium?, Got any photo's? I'd love to see it.)

To stop the water from splashing everywhere (and maybe a fish jumping out) cover glass(condensation tray) is a good idea, with/or a solid wooden lid. If you are having that much fighting then it might be your choice of fish. Has the splashing and fighting stopped since you moved the red devil? If my fish fought and one got injured once in a blue moon i would be ok with it but if one or more got injured more frequently then i would have to sort out the problem

The Red Devil has been out a few weeks and all is well. Shortly after removing him infact, the Oscars laid eggs! They are however both female Oscars so the eggs were never fertilized.

As for pictures, I have quite a few. Even a 43sec video.

This is the aquarium one year ago, before the Arowana and the Clown Knife were introduced.



This is the aquarium now. Check out the crazy reflectivity of the Clown Knife's eyes below the concrete slab on the left.



The video is sweet but you have to have Winamp to play it.