My O has started doing a couple of new things and since I am new to this I thought I would ask the experts, from everything I have read here I think its normal but want to make sure.

First he has started digging in one corner of the tank and the other thing is when he is up against the side of the aquarium he flares out his fins and opens his mouth. When he does this I also notice that his color starts to change and he becomes a lot darker in color. He looks very aggitated, he also seems to do this more at night than during the day. Last night when he was doing this he became very aggitated and as he was doing this he rubbed up against a rock and looks to have torn a little bit of skin from one of his fins. It doesnt look to bother him but is there anything I need to do for this. Thanks for your help and input.

how big and how old is your oscar?
matured oscar usually do the scooping or digging.
put an slate inside your tank. once he/she tried
push and clean it, that is normal ritual for maturing
o.

as to scrapping to some hard object and hurting him/her self,
please try to observed. he/she might be suffering from parasite
attack.

the digging is a normal oscar thing. they all do it. the gill flaring and colour changes are probably because he can see his reflection in the glass and is asserting his dominace. i would keep on eye on the rubbing against things to make sure he doesnt have any parasites like paul mentioned but the rest sounds like normal behaviour to me,

necros got it .............mine also do the same things exactly as yours ....so i would not worry just remove the sharp edged objects from the tank and try to leave the room lights on at night so he cant see his self in the glass

Thanks for the info, he/she is about 7-8 months old and about 8 inches long. The fin was actually damaged while he was up against the side of the tank becoming aggitated/ excited, as he turned to swim away he was moving very quickly and ran it across the top of a rock.

Yup - perfectly normal Oscar behaviour. Have to be careful with what you have in the tank - they will injure themselves if there is anything they can bash into - if it's sharp they will gauge bits out of themselves sometimes so try to keep ornaments to rocks and logs without sharp bits if possible. Good luck

hmmm... sounds like the personality of a male O.

Welcome to the site Bmxdad42

Thanks once again for great info, thats why I always ask the pros. And thanks for the warm welcome.