ok I know its not easy to just pick a pair of oscars & most of us get a few of them of hope for them to pair up.

but I was wondering how the oscars choose their partner?? I've currently got 5 juvies at the moment & hoping for a pair, now say for example 4 are males & 1 is female. Just like other cichlids do oscars have the same dominant/subdominant male patern? & the dominant male get the girl??

Say my oscars do pair up & I am not happy with the combination of Oscars that paired up? If I seperated them & introduced them to other oscars will they pair up with the new ones??

If they choose a partner themselves, IMO changing them around will probably give you more trouble then you like, but I'm no expert on the matter.
I guess if you get an established couple you should go with those.

Noddy wrote:


I think noddy is correct from what I have read.

Did you try the forum search? might be a similar thread or your answer buried in another one..

if not I'm sure you'l get an answer in no time when the Experts arrive

you can def pair up to your choosing but you will def run into issues cause its like snatching another mans woman not a good thing all the time but if you want a def pair best of luck i just hope you have the space avail for them if you let them breed cause caring aone can be a big challenge from time to time.

The question is if you are planning on breeding oscars why would you want to split a pair up. I am assuming you would want a certain type to breed , eg 2 tigers. The only reason i can see for splitting fish up is if you wanted to breed 2 types, like say a tiger and an albino and you end up with 2 tigers breeding. But if you want to split a pair up and try to get another to pair up you will need to have quite a few tanks to home the various oscars. I dont think it would be a problem to seperate pairs, they will soon pick up with another suitable oscar to breed with

nope, I would never want to split up a pair. I was just curious to know if they would choose another mate if they did get split up.

angmat wrote:

can you refresh me on your tank size? if your tank is not big enough, having so
many oscar in it would a problem. you may end up no fish at all before paring.
as they grow up and happen to have 2 or more males, they will keep on fighting
to establish territorial domain, more so with a female.


granting they pair up, i believe you have to stick to who among them pair up and be happy
with it. separating them to create another pair would be another hit and miss.

Paul, for now these guys are in a 75G. will be upgrading to a 250G shortly.

angmat wrote:

okey then... thanks..... having 75 gal will give you up to 3 inches size of all 5 oscars
before you encounter a lot of problems....of course, you can negate all of those things
with extra effort in water change and additional filtration.
75 gal x 3.85=288.75 liters
288.75 /5 oscar =57.75 lit per oscar /21 lit per body inch = 2.75 oscar size
which means for healthy and happy fishes, you can have them in that 75 gal until they
grow up to 3 inches long

I am not so sure on Pauls formula, I reckon you could keep 5 oscars of 3 inches long in a 75g easily. However what i would say is to test your water every week before a water change. If nitrate goes above 40 then you need to do bigger or more frequent water changes. Most of us on here do a 50% water every week. When your water changes are getting too much or too often for you then its time for a bigger tank or to rehome them. Ammonia and nitrite should be zero. If it goes above zero then you dont have enough filtration and you need more straight away

delboybully wrote:

i fully understand what you mean delboybully. most of the fish keepers says
a fully grown oscar needs at least 55 gal tank....but we do not have basis why.

so i go back to all my reading materials when i took crash course on fishkeeping
either in cage; tank, or ponds and based on that training, we need at least 21 liters
of water for every inch of fish body size. from there, i do some methodical calculation:
10 inches oscar can be considered as fully grown, thus:
21 liters x 10 inches = 210 liter / 3.85 lit per gal = 54.54 gal == 55 gal

in tilapia culture, fish can be sold when it reaches 6 to 7 inches body size. it would
be our basis on how many fries should be released in a certain size of cage so that they
would grow to that size. putting fries that are beyond the tank capacity would be a
disaster while releasing under capacity would not give you good profit.

I just think that formula is incorrect

Firstly this 1 oscar in 55gallons. It used to be 1 oscar in 55g, 2 oscars in 75g. 1 oscar is given 55g as this is minimum room for a oscar to swim, 2 oscars in 75g means 37.5g each which blows away the formula

Secondly 4 oscars at 3inches (12inches in total) is going to need less volume of water than a 12inch oscar, again the formula dont work.

Far better to water test every week and then increase water changes accordingly. This will also take into account any differences in fish keeping people may have, example types of food and amount fed