We got our fish from a lady who could no longer take care of him..hmm..HIM? I am starting not to think so. Lately our oscar has been moving things around. The cave that once faced one direction is now facing another. The gravel is out from the cave and piled up in two piles along side the glass. Our oscar has a swollen belly. The thing is that we have had her (?) for two months before that the oscar did have two albino oscars in with her before she killed them. Is it possible our oscar could be pregnant?

Okay, Oscars are egg layers, they don't give birth to live young. However, their abdomens do become slightly swollen when they are egg laden. I would like to see a photo of your Oscar if possible. How long has the abdomen been swollen? a female Oscar well indeed lay eggs without a male present, obviously you need a male to fertilise the eggs so if eggs are laid, they won't hatch.

Oscars are notorious for moving things around in their tank, this can be rocks, ornaments, plants and substrate. Whereas this kind of behaviour is often part of breeding practices, it doesn't indicate that they are going to start breeding.

Many Oscar owners will tell you that their Oscars do this on a regular basis. That's why if you keep Oscars, for get having a nice pretty tank, they often make it look like a bomb site.

Hope that helps, like I said, I would like to see a photograph of your Oscar, whereas I don't want to worry unduly, swollen abdomen is something that you have to address if the condition carries on for a while.

Here is a picture but it isn't that good of a shot.

The gravel was all even and Jo has been moving it in piles and has a clear spot under his cave. (S)He also moved his(er) cave. His(her) cave opening use to face were we see now but (s)he turned it.

I looked at my fishy this morning and the tummy area is no longer bulging and I see the evidence of what it was in the tank. (S)He just had to poo. I get a kick at how much personality Jo has...(s)he lets me pet her and actually I think (s)he loves it. Jo has grown so much since we have had her/him. I think from now on I am just going to call Jo a girl. LOL Anyhow, she has grown about 2-3 inches since we got her in April. Thank you so much OFL for your reply. I didn't mean for the pictures to be so HUGE on here. I'll try to resize them if I post a picture again.

sorry I've had to remove your photos because they are just too big for the forum. I suspect you are taking the photo straight off your digital camera and putting them straight on to photo bucket. Please try and reduce the size of your photographs.

Your Oscar was probably constipated, this can often make the abdomen swell. See if your Oscar will eat peas, this can often help with this condition

Oscars always did gravel around. When i got my first oscar i was always leveling out the gravel and replanting plastic plants. I soon got fed up with that, the plants are gone and the gravel stays as he likes it. I now think it makes the tank look more interesting

What do you feed your oscar. Cronic constipation can lead to multiple health issues. You can help avoid such issues by feeding a varied diet. Hikari biogold plus has an enzyme in it that aids in digestion, but including some shelled peas will help also.

We feed her Hikari Cichlid Gold and have started feeding her thawed frozen peas. But WOW, when she poos it looks painful! They are huge like the size of the top of an adults pinky finger tip. Is that normal? It seemed when we fed her crickets those things wouldn't cause her problems and it was easy clean up cuz the stuff floated to the top. She has been getting spooked easily too lately and darts across the tank and hurts herself. Sometimes she just does it without even being spooked by something. Maybe this is all normal because we never had a oscar before. I like her a lot because she lets me pet her and she seems to like it a lot. I stick my finger in there and she comes to me. She'll swim away and then come back for me to pet her some more. Such a sweet personality. But I get scared when she darts and hurts herself. But man, oscars heal so fast!! Even hours later you start seeing the healing process.