Hi everyone.

Im new to OscarFishLover.com and I've got 2 Oscars.

I clearly have a dominant one (Wes) as he is over double the size of my other one (Albie).

He gets picked on so much and im wondering if there was anything I can do to help him.

We've put a little ship in that he can hide in but is there anything else I can do?

Thanks so much

firstly welcome to the site.

now we need a little more info from you on your setup. like tank size, filtration, how long has it been set up for, and other tankmates. if you can answer these question it will make it easier to help in giving the proper info on how you might be able to solve your problem.

It's currently a 3 foot aquarium the big fish is about 17cm and the small fish about 8cm.

We're looking at upgrading to a bigger tank in the next couple of weeks.

We dont have any other fish in the tank.

Just a couple of plants and the ship.

It's been set up since about August and we have an in water filtration system

Thanks

since you already know that you need a larger tank for 2 oscars(at least 100 gallons) i wont comment on that. one thing to remember is you will also have to increase your filtration with your new tank. the easiset way to do this is with a cannister fitlter. one more recommendation is a water testing kit if you dont have one already. personally i would go with a liquid test kit(strips are not as accurate).

now as to why you have one oscar picking on the other. it could a few thing but i think that since you only have a 3 foot tank and your oscars are about 4 and 7 inches each that you might be running into a territorial thing. basically you dont have enough room in that tank for your oscar to get out of each others faces so to speak. to remedy this you can try to put tall plants in the tank to break the line of site(kinda like out of site out of mind). when you upgrade hopefully the oscar will each take a section as their own and the harrassing will stop.

until then as long as there is no serious damage being done to the smaller o i wouldnt worry about to much. just keep an eye on things and hopefully they will be alright until you get your new tank.

We do have a liquid water testing kit so we use that fairly often.

There are a couple of tall plants but Big O seems to like pulling them out and re-arranging so currently looking for something to keep him occupied too!

Thank you for your help!

But sadly I think little o was victim of a collision with big oscar and his jaw looks slightly out of whack. Doesnt affect his eating so hopefully he's ok, happened a month or so ago.

just to play safe, can you still post water parameters:
ammonia; nitrites; nitrates; pH;
some oscar becomes aggressive if there is problem in water.
sometimes, territorial supremacy when space is limited as
necro had said.
sometimes when hungry, they see smaller one as foods.

in the extreme case, you case use egg crate as temporary
divider if bullying continues.

just my 2 cents idea.