my oscar i have had for 3 days now is so scared of me its weird. if i stay way frotm eh tank he comes out and plays. he was eating hikari pellets the first day i brought him home. now i put the pellets in the tank and he runs and hides and by the time i walk away he has hidden himself to were he cant see it. i tried giving him a live worm and hes scared of that. he is prob around 2.5 inches. i did a water test and all is well. is this normal or am i doing something wrong. i dotn want him to be scared adn starve himself. could it be that he doestn liek the food? if i take all teh thing sout of the tank to were he cant hide he will only eat a half of a large pellet probabaly all day. any help would be good thanks

Whereas I've never had this happen to me, I have heard this kind of thing happening to other people. An Oscar that is 2 1/2 inches old is still a baby so it's not surprising he's a little timid. I don't think there's any instant cure to make your Oscar less timid. I would suggest that you actually spend more time in front of the tank so he gets used to you. When you put the food in, hang around for a little while. Oscars normally associate movement outside their tank were being fed. It might well take time, but if you persevere, he should come around. If you put food in and walk away every time because he's frightened, this will be normal to him. Give it a try and see what happens

this mornign was the same thing. when i came downstairs he was out and swimming around. as soon as i turned on the light ont eh tank he laid there scared. he didnt move. i broke up 1 hikkari gold pellet and put to pieces in teh tank and stood there. he looked up at it and then swam and hid in a little castle i have. i reached in scooped the food out. then i placed the food at the entrance of the cave and he gulped it up and then ran back in there. could it be that i work all day long and he only sees me a couple hours out of a day. will this behavior change as he matures. i sure do hope so having only 1 fish in a 46 gallon that hides all the time isnt fun lol. any more advice? thanks also one more thing when i got him he was in a tank with abotu 6 others and he was swimming around didnt hide when 5 poeple would come up to the tank but now that he is by himself could that also be a problem?

it is now lunch time here and he is still hidign. i did a water test an here is what i came with
ammonia- 0.25
nitrite-0
ph- 7.6
nitrate-5.0

could this be making him hide please help thanks

Okay, your ammonia is a little high. I would do a 40% water change to try and reduce that ammonia quite a lot. Your nitrite is Zero and you have a nitrate reading so you obviously have bacteria working. When was the last time you did a water change? Check the ammonia every day and do a small water change if you have ammonia present. For the time being, reduce your feeding regime. Because you have ammonia present, you want to try and reduce the amount of ammonia that will still be going into your tank via the fish. In other words, less food, less poo In fact, until your ammonia is zero, feed every other day. Don't worry, the fish will be okay. He is more at risk from ammonia than not being fed, put it that way. You could even get some stability which is manufactured by Seachem, this could possibly help your situation at the moment. A lot of people aren't convinced by this product, I've tried it and was quite surprised by the results.

You will probably find that as your Oscar matures and gets used to living there, he will get more confident.

i havent preformed a water change yet my tank has been established for about a little over a week now. as my tank gets more establised will teh good bacteria keep the ammonia under control? i added a chemical that removes ammonia i will see if that helps. so u think the presents of ammonia could be making him wanna hide all the time? thanks for all the help. should i try a water change? i just dont wanna freak him out even more i mean he hides all the time now i can only imagine what will happen if i stick a sypon vac in there lol

When you say your tank has been established for a little over a week, does that mean it's only been set up for a week?

What products are you using to "remove the ammonia" as you put it? What you have got to remember with a lot of these products is they don't actually remove the ammonia, what they do is convert it into a non-toxic form of ammonia. One of the most important things you have to realise when using these products is you will still get an ammonia reading when testing your water. This is what confuses people. They think they have removed the ammonia when actually, it is still there, it's just not toxic, well, let's hope that the product works as it says it does. I'm not sure what it says on the bottle but if you actually go to the website that sell these products, it states there what it actually does.

From my experience, the fish don't always show signs of being exposed to very high ammonia. In fact, I've had ammonia to 1.0 and you wouldn't think there is anything wrong by looking at the fish. However, you mustn't let this fool you, ammonia is highly toxic and will kill fish. Saying that, I can now reliably say that the ammonia has to be very high before they die very quickly (obviously there may be very very sensitive fish that will succumb quite quickly). You often read about the fish dying very quickly when the ammonia rise of about zero, this is not true at all. Fish can actually live in quite high ammonia for quite a while. However, you have to remember that even though you may not see any signs of illness, it can seriously compromise the fish's immune system and so that they may have problems later on.

Putting that all aside, you should never ever let your ammonia rise above Zero if possible. Obviously when you are cycling an aquarium, you are always going to get some ammonia present until it is fully cycled. So to answer your question, I don't think your Oscar is acting the way it is because of your ammonia. It is still eating so it obviously isn't feeling ill. If your fish starts hanging at the surface and breathing heavily, this is when ammonia could be causing problems.

cool thanks. im gonna do a 40% water change and gravel vac today. my tank has been set up with other tropical fish for about 2 months. i switched them and added a new filter to the tank so i would have to. then i did a 75 to 80% water change added water conditioner and bacteria supplement and let that settle for a coupelk days then went out and got my oscar. when i do the water change at 40% should i add more bacteria supplemnt and water conditioner as if i was setting up a new tank or just add enough to cover the new 40% of water added. thanks

I'm not too good with all the amonia and nitrates and all but i do know that when i got my oscar, she did the same thing at feeding time. She wouldnt eat at all. Take a bite out of one pellet chew it and then spit it all out, then go back to her place behind the plants. i just figured she didnt like the pellets. So i started feeding her flakes at first. She was about the same size that you say your is right now. She wasnt sure about the flakes, but she did start nippin at them after about 3-4 days. after that, she loved them. about 2 months later, i felt she was big enough for the pellets. After having flakes, she didnt want the pellets at all! spit them out again! i just said tough luck, and kept feeding her pellets. now that and feeder fish is the only thing she eats. hope that helps.

thanks he ate 2 pellets today but i had to walk away from the tank. after he ate he went back to hiding. im not gonbna start him on feeders till he gets used to me more and actually swims out when i come into the room.people tell me that it takes about a week or so for them to get used to the surrounding then ull want them to leave u alone lol. its just wierd if im away from teh tank hes fine but as soon asi get close he thinks im gonna hurt him or something. awell he will come out eventually. and if he doesnt eat then owell he will eat when hes hungry enough. andy other advice would be good thanks

wow i have never happend to me either my oscars usually love people and love food actually when i come in the room he begs and follows me around he is quite a funny guy i bout him when he was 2 inches and he is now 5 inch and he has always been the same. one of my friend bought an albino tiger and had the problem for a bout a week but once he got fully adjusted to his new home he turned out fine as long as your water levels are good ad he still looks healthy i would say just wait it out he will come around my friends oscar was just a shy one. but you have to think what the fish also just went through from being in a tank with other oscars to being thrown in a bag and changed home if this happened to you , you would not be happy at all