Hey, this is my first post here. I recently got a 75 gallon tank with about 20 african cichlids and several different kinds of catfish. Anyway, i wanted to get an oscar (read the whole post before you yell at me). After i read alot about suitable tank mates and fish behaviors. I was worried that it might be a bad idea to get an oscar. I didnt want the african cichlids to kill my oscar. Anyway, my parents didnt want me to get an oscar because it would eat all its tank mates when it got larger.. After alot of consideration, i decided to get a tiger oscar from my local petlands, and closely monitor my tank to see what would happen..

anyway, i got a tiger oscar about 2inches big from petlands, and brought it home to my tank. For the first few hours the fish kinda sulked around the bottom of the tank. At first the african cichlids studied him closely. If anyone has african cichlids you know they chase eachother constantly. Funnily enough, some of them charged at the oscar and stopped dead in their tracks about an inch from the fish when it just shrugged it off and didnt move.

eventually, my oscar started swimming about freely, other fish watched suspiciously. Some tried to chase the oscar, but it just held its ground, and the african cichlids just backed off when they saw it wasnt intimidated.

Anyway, its been over 3 months since i got my oscar, fishes dont really try mess with him anymore and vice versa. He swims about the tank minding his own business. Hes almost 5inches now. Really non agressive, fish. The african cichlids continue to chase eachother about. I gave away some of the African cichlids, some died... now i have about 10 mature african cichlids.

Ive been feeding him pellet food thusfar. I fed him some worms once. But its winter now, and its too cold to go harvest them from my backyard.

Anyway, my african cichlids have been mating like rabits. Constantly every time i do a water change. They start mating. As such, i have somewhere between 20-30 fry swimming about my tank that are accounted for. Even after giving away about 12 fry about an inch long.

The fry (or i guess some are juvenile now) vary from species, and size to between just born (first weeks of life) to 2inches (bout 3 months).

Anyway, heres something really strange i noticed. My Oscar seems to have no interest in these tiny fish swimming about my tank. These small fish, even the very tiny ones, swim about the tank bottom in open areas exposed to the rest of their tankmates. Even their own parents seem to be interested in eating them. One fish i have eats his own frys as soon as the female releases them...

also, when i feed my bottomfeeders vegetarian pellets, my oscar seems to like eating these, as it seeks them out and chews them down. Once, a few of the african frys were trying to eat one of these pellets that was 3/4 their size, and the oscar swam up, and picked up the pellet and ate it. Left the little fish alone. These fish are small, and they can easily fit in my oscars mouth. Even the ones that are 2 inches can be swallowed by a 4 1/2 inch oscar i think. but I dont feed him fish. I fed him some shrimp the other day. He seemed to like that..


Anyway, i always read that you should never mix south american and african cichlids.. I read that they would kill eachother and become territorial. Even still, i read that some oscars are very agressive and will chase and kill fish that are smaller. Even still i read that oscars will eat any fish in the tank smaller than them. but i have yet to see this happen. My aggressive african cichlids dont harass my oscar at all. even when he was smaller than them. My tank seems pretty peaceful as of now. All the fish get along with eachother. Expect for the chasing thing. otherwise, my oscar is just a loner, that keeps to himself.

what do you guys make of this? can i expect that my oscar will continue to be this docile, or do they tend to become more agressive upon reaching adulthood?

A veggie oscar. ho my god what next.

i do believe that oscar is a gentle fish. but when
treaten, they can become aggressive. i had seen some
oscar that can co-exist with small school of fishes
without attacking them. but i had seen oscar too that
took even the pleco and eventually become dead both.

you are lucky for the meantime that you do not have
issues about the tankmates. just cross your finger that
they remain slent in the long run. good luck

welcome here to OFL sir^_~

first of all i think you are pretty lucky they are still not yet killing each other and the fry not getting eaten. second, in my opinion yuo should probably consider having a bigger tank if u want to have a population as big as that beacuse as said Os are the pigs of the tank so eventually you will just overcrowd and in turn lower the quality of your water. So again welcome to the crazy world of OSCARS:P

for as long as i have been keeping oscars i have not had any problems with my o's attacking or eating little fish.
although your tank is definitly overcrowded at the moment you should have no problenm between the oscar and some malawis.

where problem start to occur is in the dietary needs of the malawis and the south american cichlids. most malawis eat a mainly vegetive diet while south americans tend to eat more of an insect invertabrate and fish diet.

another consideration is to proper house african cichlids the ph should be in the mid to high 8's and this is a little to high for oscars. that beeeing said however most africans nowadays are bred in a neutral ph range so they can survive with oscars.

as to if your oscar will eat your malawis only time will tell. if you wake up one morning and your missing a bunch of africans i think we can all figure out who the culprit is.


btw welcome to the site

Thanks, i try to keep my water very clean, and do as many water changes as possible. Usually, i have been giving away alot of the African cichlids simply because i realized the tank is overcrowded since we got it. My fish shows no signs of agression. Alot of fish try to taunt him but he just swims along. I dunno why he doesnt eat any of the small fish swimming around.

Anyway, im going to feed him mainly shellfish and shrimp. as well as pellet food. Maybe if i just dont feed him fish, he wont eat any of them.

heh, seems i spoke too soon! the next day after making this post i fed my fish a load of pellet food. But apparently, it wasnt enough for him.. A few moments later i come back to my tank to find one of my small yellow cichlid fry about an inch in size in his mouth. Seems like hes tasted blood.

That was a while ago. i havent seen him go after or eat any other fish.. But then again, its hard to notice when I have 20+ of that size fish swimming about in the hiding places of my tank.

in any case, my oscar fish still remains very docile and non aggressive as ever. doesnt bother other fish. But i have noticed him looking at some of the little fish in a very devious manner. Im speculating now weather my fish only tries to go for them when no ones looking..

that is normal instinct of the oscar. even if they are full, they
tend to grabbed more foods to the point that the last one remains
in their mouth. any fish that could fit in their mouth is always
in danger but there are instances that some hobbyist could mixed
them very well. very expensive meal.

the moral lesson here is that always put tank mate big enough that
they will not fit the oscar's mouth.

yeah, i had forseen this when i got my oscar. But my main concern was that the African cichlids wouldnt harass him or kill him, or vice versa. So far they have lived in somewhat harmony with one another. My fish seem to just mess with fish of their own species. my catfish mess with other catfish, my africans mess with other africans, and they leave my oscar alone.

right now hes not big enough to eat any of my larger fish, but he is helping to keep my fish population down, because my african cichlids breed like rabbits. Im actually getting rid of about 10 of the smaller ones this week.

Dunno what will happen when he gets bigger.. but i dunno, african cichlids dont interest me much. I like my oscar. I was actually considering putting a small fire eel in there.. but i still have to do some research before i make that decision.

all in all, i love this fish. it was definitely a good addition to my tank.

oh, and i havent witnessed him eat any other fish since.

i havent kept any kinds of eels but just a suggestion, i see fire eels around a lot. i know they get to be a decent size, and id take a guess that theyd be good tankmates. just do some research and make sure they are ok to put together and dont grow too big for your tank

in my case, it is my angel fish who controls
the population. whenever my oscar hatched their eggs,
angel fish pick all the fries....