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This just started yesterday. They have always swam together before and now one of them is missing peices of scales. I have witnessed the unharmed oscar nipping at the injured one, relentlessly. Should I separate? Should I let them duke it out? I want to keep them in hopes of breeding. I have a separate tank setup for the eggs. They share the tank with one decent sized "sucker fish" that is not injured or bothered. The uninjured fish is chasing after the other as I type. These are some photos I took seconds ago from photobucket, one of them is attached, I do not know how to attach the other three . Someone please help!

The injuries do look superficial, however, if it carries on all the time, I think you would have the separate them. A breeding pair of Oscars can often squabble, they do often injure themselves whilst doing this. From my experience, they don't do it all the time. When I had my breeding pair, they would often bash themselves up. However, they never gave me cause for concern because it wasn't as if they were fighting all the time. Is the one that is attacking the other one flaring his gills quite a lot? If so, this is a sign of aggression.It's going to be a difficult decision for you. They could well be a breeding pair that are just extremely rough with each other, if you separate them, you could be preventing them from breathing. On the other hand, it might just be pure aggression that needs to be stopped. One more question, is the one being attacked fighting back at all, or is it just acting defenceless?. I would expect a breeding pair to actually spar with each other. Again from my experience, it was never one-sided with my Oscars.

If the aggression carries on much longer I would seperate them or the one that is getting beaten up might die

I would either remove the aggressor to a seperate tank for a week then put him back in the tank, or put a divider in and after a week put the aggressive one into the other side. Leave a couple of days then remove the divider. If after doing either option the aggression continues then im afraid you are going to have to seperate for good

The injured one used to fight back. They would do that lip lock thing and chase each other. Most of the time they just swam together. They even ate together. This "aggression" just started. The injured will swim away, but otherwise just sits there and takes it like it is depressed. I got one more picture to show. I got as close to the attack as possible, and this is the worse side of Athena (injured). Kratos is the attacker.

I would seperate or the weaker one might end up being killed. Try what i mention earlier in this post. Also I would put some treatment in for the injured fish. Something that treats fin rot might help him heal

Thank you for your help. I will check around the pet shops for a divider. The closest one is about an hour from here. I will look online also. I hope they can learn to get along though. I am stumped as to why Kratos would hurt Athena and not Eros("suckerfish"). I guess I should have chosen the names more carefully, as Kratos is the "God of War" in the game series and is the aggresor in this situation. Of course in Greek mythology, Athena would not just sit there and take it. She would fight back. Also in Greek mythology, the actual god of war is Aries, Athena's brother. They feuded often as to who had the better army, Athens or Sparta. I would appreciate any more thoughts, and will keep everyone posted as to my progress with my babies.
One other question though. Would Eros being in the tank, keep them from breeding?

The simplest divider is a piece of glass. Get it cut from any glaziers. Hold it in place with suckers, the sort that hold heater etc. If you have 2 filters have one working on either side. If you only have one filter put the intake on one side and the outflow on the other side. Im not 100% sure on this so hopefully someone who does know will chip in

The reason the plec is left alone is because he is not seen as a threat

I think they might be breeding. Kratos is no longer attacking Athena. Neither one of them has eaten in at least two days. There were several dozen minnows in the tank. They usually have those gone within 3-4 days. There have been 5 minnows in the tank since before we noticed the aggression. They are still in there, and alive. Athena seems lethargic and is staying close to the bottom of the tank. Again, Kratos is now leaving Athena alone. Every once in a while, we notice that one or both of them will shake there tail fin. Not like swimming. More like a tremble or like a leg that will not sit still, or a twitch that lasts a few seconds. This is Athena right now. She still moves from time to time.

In my opinion i dont think that they are about to breed, i may be wrong but both fish should take an active part in spawning. The main thing you need to do now is to make sure your water quality is good so that the fish with the missing scales doesnt get infected. I dont thing the stuff you have on the bottom of the tank will encourage your fish to spawn as they like to dig around in the gravel to find somewhere to hide the fry once they have hatched. It may be that you have two males. When breeding it is best to have them in a tank on their own, if there is any threat ie other fish(especially plecs) they will eat the eggs. That said Oscars are funny creatures and they may just turn round and spawn for you . good luck

Here is an update. I got the tank divider in, and the medications for Athena. She seems to have a flap of tissue that looks like a gash. It might be that the new scales are forming underneath and she is shedding the bad layer. Here is a picture of her now.

That is quite a nasty abrasion. Doesn't look infected but I couldn't possibly tell for sure just by looking at a photograph. Like what's already been said, do you regular water changes. If your water is in good condition, even this nasty abrasion shouldn't take too long to start healing. What medication have you got? I think melafix would have been quite good on this. I have never had injuries this bad on my fish. I certainly wouldn't be putting them back together if this is what is going to happen each time.

Yikes, that a pretty bad injury. What medications are you treating him with?
I would recommend melafix. If he gets any parasite etc., you may want to add jungle parasite clear, which will kill anything on him.