I was just beginning to do substrate vacuum, and I noticed the Gold Severum coming at me... this is a first, since this particular fish usually stays away hiding under their claimed driftwood all the time I perform this routine.

I brought all fish about the same week to this tank. In a matter of days the Severums (one Gold, one Green) took over the Right hand side of the tank. I worked my best to encourage the two Oscars to settle for the opposite side, and placed, buried in the sand a large piece of flat rock. I used bundles of Tropical Hornwort to create some division within the six footer.

As I was paying attention to not disrupting the substrate on the Severums territory -it is neatly cleaned by them. I barely noticed Moon, the largest of my two Oscars, coming to right hand, holding the vacuum tube. What happened next took me by surprise. Moon took a bite at me, not like attacking me, just grabbed my finger, shooked it a bit, released and retreated.

To my surprise, there it was, right on top of the flat rock, that they have been cleaning for some time. I didn't pay too much attention since I have read that Oscars, usually play -a way of learning- mating like behavior before they are maturely ready to spawn. Well I do have a bunch of eggs there.

What remains to be determined is if I have indeed a pair or just two females. So I will re-read the whole section about breeding Oscars as I wait for your suggestions.

What should I do now? What should I NOT do? Can/should I proceed with my regular maintenance? Should I leave the substrate be and just do the water change? Should I do regular, daily, 10% water changes? or go as usual, every 5 to 6 days?

Nitrates are a bit high, close to 25ppm since I took extra days in doing the last partial water change due to being sick with a flu, and they reached 40ppm for the first time (11 or 12 days went by since previous one).

Thanks, I'm so excited about this! Just happened too soon! I can bet they are 8 and 7" each (although I have never measured them directly, but through the tank's glass).

Pepe
Santo Domingo

Well I can tell you eggs color is not white but more like a light brown. This eggs might have been there since yesterday, since I'm dealing with a heavy work load. Would it be a good idea to physically divide the tank with something like egg crate?

I would like to report that no aggressive like behavior, no lip-locking, no chasing, happened at all between this pair since they began displaying a peaceful mating like behaviour -they did cleaned two rocks in the middle of the tank first, but nothing happened there.

They have been swimming together since they entered their tank. One -Moon- constantly attacked the other -Luna-the first time they met (when temporarely housed in a 26UKgal bow tank) to the point that I had to split them for a few days (You helped me a lot those days). I can't believe this is happening!

The Oscars are being quite aggressive towards anyone daring coming nearby half the tank. They seem to be tolerant however with the paired-off Convicts who remain housed in their driftwood-like decor most of the time caring for their fry.

I might let nature play it's course -as I am doing with the Convicts, since this pair is really young: although I might select a few newborns to raise separately in the hospital tank. I'm concern about the fry food: I don't have access to baby shrimp, but I saw commercially produced food for fry/baby fish in a LFS (I think it's Nutrafin brand, but not sure).

I would like giving away some baby Oscars to seriously committed newbies, after all I'm only keeping this pair; they would purchase them at the LFS, but I know they don't care who ends up mis-caring for them, and who would provide proper care.

I understand quite well what I got myself into, and I enjoy every minute of it: I'm willing to keep this pair for their whole lifespan -hopefully 10+ years.


Pepe
Santo Domingo

since you seem to have a good understanding of what you might be in for congrats on the spawning. i hope you keep us posted on the development of the situation.(with pics of course)

We have some free-swimming tiny-tiny fellows!

Luna (male) is kind of nervous, prompt to react to Moon (female) if she moves a bit too quick. Mom is gently picking those fishies venturing outside the flat rock and "landing" them in one side of the rock (there's some sand there from this "operation").

I realize how bad I am at guessing the number of eggs, honestly I thought they laid about a hundred, but there are so many swimming and so many waiting to hatch. I'm not allowed coming too close to the tank, I don't want to spook them, so I might be missing some action.

Another good thing, is that I found artemia eggs, and set them in a kind of primitive method that is supposed to work. They are supposed to hatch in a day or two. Also I got the baby fish food, it's a product from Italy, Nutron Baby, made by Prodac.

I went ahead yesterday and did the best "do not disturb" partial water change -used a small power head to take water out- (40%) and manage to bring down nitrates to <10ppm. However I skipped the substrate vacuum, so those might raise quite quick. I added Amazon Extract, from API to the water.

Pepe
Santo Domingo

congrats on your babys

Day 1 of parenting hatching fry

Here's a low quality pic of the proud and caring parents. The brownish stuff in the substrate are the fry, some are swimming around and being brought back to the pack; most of them are just in a "vibrating/shaking" mode. I don't know how to use this camera well, I used a the small format -VGA, e-mail- to ensure I wouldn't upload a pic too big.

It's amazing but I can see the pin-size eyes in a disproportionately huge brownish head/body and a translucent tail. I tried to capture a image of some of the tiny Oscars, but I recognize I'm not skilled to do this photographic work. I am watching live images of the newborn Oscars, as the one posted in this site!

Anyway, I leave you with this not-so-good picture capturing a wonderful-day in Oscar Keeping for me (my first newborn Oscars ever). Moments like the one portrayed in this pic, definitely show that the hard work/time invested, day-in day-out, in properly keeping Oscars, with guidance from experts like you, and the effort you put in this wonderful site, is really worth it.

Thank you Oscarfishlovers!

Mommy Moom is the one up front, looking for those venturing out of the nursing area -moved behind the flat rock where they were this morning -that surface was neatly clean yesterday, now has a lot of sand all over. Daddy Luna is behind, working as hard as the mother. I managed to get them to eat today, by showing/shaking the container of food, then I carefully opened the lid and dropped some sticks, they didn't eat as voraciously as usual, but they got their share of food twice today, using this method -they keep ignoring food on the other side of the tank, which they have been avoiding for a couple of days now.


Pepe
Santo Domingo

Day 1 of parenting hatching fry

Here's a low quality pic of the proud and caring parents. The brownish stuff in the substrate are the fry, some are swimming around and being brought back to the pack; most of them are just in a "vibrating/shaking" mode. I don't know how to use this camera well, I used a the small format -VGA, e-mail- to ensure I wouldn't upload a pic too big.

It's amazing but I can see the pin-size eyes in a disproportionately huge brownish head/body and a translucent tail. I tried to capture a image of some of the tiny Oscars, but I recognize I'm not skilled to do this photographic work. I am watching live images of the newborn Oscars, as the one posted in this site!

Anyway, I leave you with this not-so-good picture capturing a wonderful-day in Oscar Keeping for me (my first newborn Oscars ever). Moments like the one portrayed in this pic, definitely show that the hard work/time invested, day-in day-out, in properly keeping Oscars, with guidance from experts like you, and the effort you put in this wonderful site, is really worth it.

Thank you Oscarfishlovers!

Mommy Moon is the one up front, looking for those venturing out of the nursing area -moved behind the flat rock where they were this morning -that surface was neatly clean yesterday, now has a lot of sand all over. Daddy Luna is behind, working as hard as the mother. I managed to get them to eat today, by showing/shaking the container of food, then I carefully opened the lid and dropped some sticks, they didn't eat as voraciously as usual, but they got their share of food twice today, using this method -they keep ignoring food on the other side of the tank, which they have been avoiding for a couple of days now.


Pepe
Santo Domingo

Congrats! I hope small fry will grow up too.

congrats hopefully u get a good brude ive been trying to breed oscaars for a couple weeks now with this pair

congrats on your bacth of fry. ihope things continue to go well and yuo keep us updated with photos of the growing babies

jdforever12345 wrote:


All I did was provide as good care as I'm capable of -adequate tank size, good quality of water, balanced nutrition, friendly aquascaping... I guess I was quite lucky too, since I ended up with two youngsters that happened, by chance, to be female and male, got along well, and decided to pair-off.

Pepe
Santo Domingo

Congrats again. Me too is lucky enough to have a pair of male & female. But please check this out, in my locality, there is a belief that in a wild, a group of fishes will eventually changed their sex, from male to female or vise versa. I am not sure about it but that is an ancient belief of my folks.