im thinking of taking my clay pots out of the tank and going with some pieces of drift wood with maybe java fern on it i want to have a more natural look to the tank what you guys think

Many people have tried keeping plants and Oscars together and failed because Oscars are so powerful, they can just rip plants to pieces and uproot from the substrate, even if you gt out of your way to try and anchor them in.

Having said that, I have got various fake plants and my Oscars don't take any notice of them at all. I do have my theory is why this is so, my Oscars live in a very large tank, they got so much room to move around, I don't think they bother with the plants.

All I can say is give it a go, you may find they don't take any notice of the plants, on the other hand, they may just rip them to pieces

I have tried and spent a fair amount on plants only to find them torn to bits. I now have good quality fake plants. my advice is fake, don't waste your cash.

yes fake plants with oscars is the way to go
I also used to have plants in my tank that were annihilated

i use to put natural plants in my aquarium
but as my oscar grow bigger, they rip them apart.
later on, i used my aquarium in rooting my
garden plants during propagation before
replanting them. But still my oscar removed
all roots at the bottom. Even the artificial
plants could not stay anchored at the substrate,
my oscar moved them away. today, i only have
big rock where my mermaid had been epoxied.

Me on the other hand have had mixed results and so far stick with planted tank for Oscar.

Since most tropical plants are way cheap down here, I can try them without loosing much at all.

So far this is my experience with one specific pair of Oscars (others may and some will behave way differently) who share their tank with a pair of Green+Gold Severums, two pairs of Convicts, and three Kenyi, in a deep natural river sand substrate (no fertilizers added), and barely 2x20W standard fluorescent lights placed on top of bronze-coloured 3/16" thick glass covering a surface of 72"Lx18"W and a depth of 26":

Swords: Total failure. Destroyed, uprooted.
Anubias barteri: untouched, but leaves got way dirty, will try again when I upgrade my substrate to Eco-Complete.
Anbuias Afzelii: Total failure. uprooted.
Anacharis: seem to work but requires more light than the Oscars feel comfortable with, so I took them out. Anacharis bundles with less than needed light will suddenly die and decompose, so better not taking that chance.
Tropical Hornwort: Fairly good, they will uproot some they don't want in certain areas of the tank, but likely leave some areas undisturbed, so I keep this areas as "planted" while let them have some floating bundles. So far so good.
One Unidentified plant: this floating plant that I have not been able to ID yet is doing as good as Hornwort.

Note: The only drawback is constant cleaning of filter intakes as plants' debris float around causing filter clogging if you are not careful, at least for a few weeks, as they "settle" in the tank. Since I enjoy doing tank maintenance this is not a problem at all for me.

Pepe
Santo Domingo

PS: I promise to upload some pics tomorrow or by Sunday.

I recently tried live plants and had the same result as many of you. The Oscars like to rearrange the plants to suit their taste. They killed all my plants except for the grass. They left that alone for some reason.

A guy at the pet store told me to buy some fake plants and use aquarium silicone (stuff you fix the tank with) and affix some gravel to the bottom of the plant. This way when they decide to pick it up it is heavy and they may leave it alone. Otherwise when they drop the plant it looks like it is still rooted in the gravel. I am going to try this after I clear up the current cloudy water issue.