I have 2 young oscar fish, one of them leans to a 45 degree angle at times, is this normal?

welcome to OFL
does the other oscar bully him?

Welcome to our little community

From my experience, all Oscars sits at a funny angle on occasions. As long as they don't stay motionless for too long, you don't have anything to worry about

mine does some weird stuff too. He will be fighting and running and be upside down or sideways swimming, I think he is just to lazy to stay upright. If he is never upright, then there may be a problem!

one time i came home after office work and see my lutino motionless
floating sideways. i thought i lost him and tried to touch him. my
goodness, he splash hard and wet my polo and necktie. damn stupid fish,
he is just sleeping with an open eyes

here's my Oscar making a full loop, you only see the last bit, but you get the point.


and at night they do some strange positions too.

Noddy your tank and fish.....Im speechless and jealous lol

welcome

I swear that was like watching my O @ noddy!

Mine does weird stuff like that, I always used to think something was wrong with him but i know now that its nothing like that! I observe that strangeness and its hilarious! And night time they must be on drugs, cause I never under stood why he would sleep so funny.

@paul, yea they sure can fool ya. I thought mine were dying once also, and I dont think they can sleep any other way but with eyes open, right????

This is normal. It is a defense mechanism that Oscars developed in the wild. When they are introduced into a new enviroment, stressed or sometimes when they just feel like it lol, they will lay on their side to make it appear to other fish that they are dead.

This works for hunting and defense purposes. If the Oscar is hungry he may lay on his side appearing dead to a smaller fish that will swim by and then BAM. On the flipside, the Oscar may do this if he is stressed so he will appear dead to fish of the same size and larger, and they will leave him alone.