I have recently bought a small Tiger Oscar (around 4 inches)i am keeping it a large tank with a Pictus Catfish and a Gold Severum, all around the same size. This is the first Oscar i have owned although have kept tropical fish for years. The Oscar has taken to cowering away from the Severum and appears to be loosing scales after run ins with it.
Are there any suggestions on how i can make things nicer for my Oscar? would it be worth moving the Severum to another tank and replacing it with another Oscar? (the tank is big enough)
any responses greatly appreciated

Matt

how big is your tank please ........dimentions or volume ...so we can have a clearer picture to help with what course of action to take

the tank is around 400 gallons i appreciate this will not always be suitable for it however it will be changed into a much larger tank as it grows.

Matt

It won't be very long before the Oscar is much bigger and braver than the severum, he may think twice about picking on your Oscar then

I've also got a red spotted gold severum about 7 inches and he won't dare have a go at any of my Oscars.

askhammatt wrote:


Are you sure you haven't got litres and gallons mixed up? If not, nice tank, I've got a 300 gallon, 8' x 2.5' x 2.5'

no its a huge tank, i got it off a family friend, iv only ever had small tropical fish and thus when i got this tank i jumped at the chance of getting an oscar.

very glad the oscar wont be getting bullied much longer, any ideas on roughly how fast it will grow?

matt

Unless you are intending on keeping sharks , I don't see why you need to upgrade to a larger tank if you are only keeping the Oscars

Approximately 1 inch per month for the first year

well the idea was to get lots! and to be honest wasn't 100% sure how much spce they needed

thanks for all your help

Matt

a 400 gal with good adequate filtration will house 8 + adult oscars easily

If you are really serious about getting the sort of tank that would be found in a public aquarium then why not create a sort of biotope? You do have to remember that the Amazon region is absolutely massive with lots of different waterways so if you wanted to concentrate on just one, it would take a lot of research to get it completely right. You've also got to remember that you can only mix certain type of fish with Oscars. So although an exact biotope might sound appealing, you would only be able to choose the larger fish to mix with the Oscars. It is not only large fish that live in the Amazon, there are lots of small ones well, such as tetras, not a good choice for tank mates.

It's all very well cramming as many Oscars as you can into a large tank, that's just boring. You could create a really nice Amazon theme with lots of different fish that inhabit the Amazon region. You could then add a huge piece of wood which would make it a very authentic.

When you take on these kind of projects, you want to do it properly. That is a lot of tank and it could quite easily end up looking completely naff if you don't plan it out properly. The worst thing you could do is to put a sunken ship in it. My 300 gallon tank contains dark sand, two massive pieces of wood, and some rock. It's quite simple but looks great. All my fish are from South America as well.

When I set my Oscar tank (121UKgal, 72"Lx18"Wx26"L)in July 2008, I had two Tiger Oscars at 3.5 and 5 inches each, and one Heros Severum (Green) also at 5". Within days I brought home another Heros Severum (Gold), this one almost 3.5".

I wathced some expected aggressive-like beahvior, I list some for you:
a) The Gold Heros Severum, despite being likely the smallest one, ruled that tank.
b) The smallest of the Tiger Oscars harassed the big one for some time.
They ended up swimming together for some time, then claimed their territory and stopped mingling.
c) My Oscars succeed in their first attempt to hatch fry (none survived) but harmed no-one, although everyone else somehow knew to stay "cramped" at the opposite end of the tank, with the sole exception of a then Kenyi sub-adult that to this day, as adult female, is somehow "close" to the female Oscar.

Some bruises happened, but I learned here, at Oscarfishlover.com not to jump the gun. I kept an eye on them and focused on keeping the water parameters as pristine as possible (to avoid opportunistic infections) but since all injuries were actually superficial bruises, with some torn fins and lost scales, they healed pretty fast. Yes there are some scars to tell the tale today of past moments of aggression: My male Oscar has a "horizontal line" on the left side of his body, but to notice it you must get really close to him.

As my Oscars reached the 13" mark, I noticed the Severum being harassed. Until one day, recently, it got really nasty. I moved them out to another tank. It seems that the Oscars want to be the sole big-fish in that tank. They are actually sharing it with 17 Silverdollars sub-adults, 6 adult Kenyi, and 2 young adults Angelfish.

Providing several driftwoods and mid-size stones has helped me in the past in tampering out aggressive-like behavior. Every individual fish is unique, hope you can find out if your specific fish can share one tank. The size of your tank tells me you are likely to succeed.

Also they can get hurt by moving things around in the tank...

Pepe
Santo Domingo

really appriciate all this help, i agree with what has been siad about getting other fish besides lots of oscars, iv got them on the brain at the moment thats all!
the tank is taking up most of my basement so i will look inot getting some large bits of wood, i have lots of smaller bits at present but as yet have yet to locate a really large bit.
in regards to tank mates, i went to my local tropical fish dealer and asked for advice and i was told the ONLY thing i could keep with my current Oscars are Severums, he siad they would eat anything else that was smaller than it which could fit in its mouth and attack the rest, hence why i have opted at present to only house the Severums
Am i right in thinking, as long as i kept everything well fed, i could be keeping many differant varieties of fish (from the same region) without the oscars simply killing everything like was suggested?
Finally would it be reasonable to post some photos of my tank for experienced ocsar keepers to comment on suitable and exciting ideas in regards to things like hiding places and features?

Many thanks

Matt