sup everyone if my oscars are digging does that mean they are a pair? well i started with 7 juvi oscars about 2 inches. i had them in a 100 gal tank, i couldent keep up with the water changes so i got rid of 5. now im left with 2 oscars which are about 8-9 inches. they started to dig so i moved them into their owen 60-70 gal tank. now they are digging even more, but the male (proven seen his "sexual organ") is doing most of the digging. dont see the female (not sure if its really a female) digging to much. the other day i was doing a water change and my filter was splashing water over the surface and they kinda started jaw locking. but i bearly see them jaw locking, but the male is beating the crap out of the female to the point where alot of her scales came off. she also has bruses on her and at one point one of her side fins where not moving. should i seperate them or leave them? i bought a drip tray for a flower pot and threw it in but they seem to dig around it. to me they show all the sigs of breeding pair but still ahvent breed yet. they have been digging for about a month or two now and i had them for about a lilttle over a year i think. could any one tell me if i have a breeding pair and what i should do to incurage them to breed. any help would be grate thxs

when it comes to breeding you can always increase the temperature in the tank and do waterchanges more often. it's worth a try:)

yea i did raise the temp up. i try to keep it at 82-84, i do a water chane ever week. should i bump it to twicw a week?

moving substrates is normal activity of oscar as they
mature as well as lip locking. female is usually the one
who does the digging and cleaning the slate. the male is
the one who tested and push the slate if anchore securely.
if about to spawn, no one could come near the slate. both
will drive away the intruder.

to help increase the spawning cycle begin with feeding your oscar a large variety of live food more often. then after a week do a big water change 50% and when replacing the water make a few (3) degrees cooler than the mormal tank temp. allow the water to return to its original temp over a period of a few days and this should help.

in the wild oscar spawn after the rainy season when the insect from the forest are washed into the river and food is plentiful. the rain water also lower the ambient temp a little and the tropical sun gradually warms it. anyway this the logic behind this.

Thxs for the info I will start doing that asap. What kind of live food would u recommend me to feed them? Should I got a catch some bugs or go buy some feeders,grass shrimp,worms,etc? And I also my male oscar is real aggrestive towards me. He will attack the tank glass when I go near it and it will jump out the water to try to attack me. At one point its whole body almost came out the water to try to attack my hand. And do u guys thing I have a breeding pair from what I have told ya. Thxs

it could be a pair but you wont really know until you see some eggs. but it does sound like your"male" is quite aggressive. if he continues to harm the female you might have to seperate them. keep an eye on them and see what happens.


as for live food you could try crickets, earthworms, river shrimp, mealworms, crayfish, maggots, superworms. personally i would stay away from feeders for nutritional and health reasons.

hi how many oscar could i put in a juwel rio 400
with an external canister filter to try and find a
breeding pair and how big do they have to be before they
reach maturity the ones ive seen in the fish shop are about 1 inch

if i remember right a 400 works out to be about 90 gallons or so. this would mean that you meet the minimum requirememt for 2 oscars. no mates just oscars.

in order to breed o's you need a male and female. this is the tricky part. the only sure way to do it is to get a group of 6 or so oscars and let them pair off naturally. the drawback to this is oscar only reach sexual maturity at about 12-16 months of age and by this time they are around a foot in length. in order to house all these oscars you need a larger tank.

or you can just pick 2 oscars at random and hope for the best. unfortunelty this is probalby your only option at this point.

how many gallons is the tank? they should mature at around 8-10 inches i think and thats around a year to a year ansd a half. ur suppose to keep an adult oscar in a 55 gal per oscar. i had my "pair" in a 60-70 gal tank and my male was beating the crap out of my "female". after a cupole of weeks i moved them into a 100 gal tank. after that they werte fine. but i only kept them in there for a few weeks then i had to move them into my 135 gal with my other fishes cuzz i needed the 100 gal for my rbp's. i just sold the "pair" like 2 days ago.

hi kitty, necro and blaze had spoken, and i concur with them.
oscar can reach maturity at 10-12 inches long or at one
year old and above. since most of us do not have any idea how
long the fishes are in the local fish shop, what we have is
just an approximate age.

pairing is a trial and error task. in case you have both male,
they will fight for supremacy, if both were female, it will be
hard to tell because they could get along together.