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Breeding Oscars is a venture that must be thought about very carefully. I wouldn't recommend doing it just for the fun of it. If you are successful, you may end up with lots of fish that you can't do anything with. A mature pair of Oscars can produce up to 1000 eggs which can all hatch. However, there is a very high mortality rate with young hatchlings. In the wild, around 90% of young baby Oscars will die in the first couple of months. You should fare slightly better when breeding in captivity.

Oscars are what we call monomorphic, meaning that male and female look the same. This means that you can't go to a shop and choose a male and a female like you can with other species of fish. Contrary to a few people's belief, you cannot tell the sex of an Oscar by the shape of its fins, the length of its body, or even it is colouring.  You will normally only know the sex of your Oscars when they start laying eggs. There are various ways you can increase your chances of obtaining a male and a female. Probably the easiest way is to find somebody who is willing to let you have a known mating pair of Oscars. Most people would prefer to get their Oscars at a young age so the best way to make sure you get a pair is to buy several Oscars at a very young age and wait for them to pair off.  Betwee three and six Oscars will give you a very good chance of finding a male and a female.

I must advice you that trying to obtain a pair of Oscars from a batch  must only be attempted if you have a large enough tank.  You will have to observe the Oscars for a few months before you are absolutely sure you have a pair. Trying to do this in a tank that is too small will only put your fish at risk from health problems. 

Only when Oscars start laying eggs will you know for sure that you have got a male and a female. The females egg tube is overall in the shape, not unlike the pointed end of an egg. The males sexual organ is pointed and looks rather like a thorn.

Oscars won't be sexually mature until they are at least 7 inches. Timewise it could be between 12 and 18 months. Oscars prefer to lay their eggs on a flat surface, they will not lay their eggs directly on the substrate. If there is nothing in the tank for them to lay their eggs on, they will clear a patch of gravel/sand until the bottom of the tank is exposed and then they will lay their eggs there. If you want your Oscars to breed then you are probably wise to put something in the tank like a piece of flat slate or rock.

A pair of breeding Oscars will go through various rituals such as lip locking, also known as jaw locking, you may also notice them chasing each other around the tank, nipping at each other and performing what sometimes looks like a very rough behaviour. Your Oscars may perform all of these strange behaviours, or just a couple. It is quite rare, but sometimes they don't do any of them. if you do start seeing your Oscars performing these strange behaviours, don't get too excited, it can often be many months before they actually start laying eggs. A short time before they start laying eggs, one or maybe even two days, they will go off their food. You will have probably observed them acting strangely such as excavating the substrate, as in picking up mouthfuls of gravel/sand and moving it to another part of the tank. If they haven't been doing it already, they will then spend a considerable amount of time cleaning a rock, more than likely a flat rock. They will literally be standing on their noses pecking at the rock, sometimes doing it for hours. They may even try and move the rock around the tank so you will be probably advised not to put too close to the glass or any breakable items such as heaters etc. It really is fascinating to watch them carrying out this behaviour.

When the Oscars are ready to lay eggs, you will see their sexual organs protrude from underneath them. The female Oscar will then start swimming over the area where she is going to lay. She could well spend quite a long time moving around in circles, rubbing her underside on the surface of where she is deposit the eggs. All of a sudden you will start to see tiny white eggs appear. They will be perfectly round little white eggs but she won't lay the eggs all in one go. She may lay a few eggs and then let the male swim over the top and fertilise them. When all of the eggs have been laid, both the female and the male will hover over the eggs and fan them with his pectoral fins. This is to oxygenate them. They will also become very protective and aggressive. Any fish that dares to go near the eggs can expect a very hostel reception and more than likely will receive a good hiding.

If after a few hours you start noticing a cotton wool type fungus growing on the eggs, there is a very good chance that all, or some of the eggs are infertile. Unfortunately, the fungus may start attacking good eggs as well.  There's not a lot you can do about this. This is one of the reasons why methylene blue is used, it can help to prevent and treat fungus on eggs. A word of warning!  Adding methylene blue to your main tank could destroy your biological filter. In other words, you will lose all your beneficial bacteria. 

The eggs normally take 3 days to hatch. If they are fertilised they should turn a lightish tan colour. If they stay white, they are not fertilised. You may notice the Oscars appear to eat the odd egg, this is exactly what they are doing. They know a bad egg and will remove it straightaway. Don't be surprised if you wake up in the morning and all the eggs have gone. This is very common and happens more often than not. Various things contribute to this happening such as eggs that are not fertilised or parents that have been spooked in some way.

This is a very good photograph of fertilised Oscar Fish eggs  

This Oscar fry is 2 hours old And has been affectionately named Nemo

When the eggs to hatch, the fry will be totally helpless, they will appear as a wriggling mass attached to the rock., at this stage, they don't need food. The Fry will have a yolk sac that will feed them for around four days. Once the yolk sac is gone, the Fry will then need feeding. They need feeding a lot and they need to be fed the correct food. If you do neither of these, they will die very quickly. Before we carry on, we better address two points. Are you absolutely determined that you want a brood of baby Oscars that survive or are you not really bothered? If you would like to see the Oscars look after their young then you will have to accept the fact that the Oscars may eat the eggs or the Fry. If you want to take it very seriously and you definitely want lots of baby Oscars then you will really need to remove the eggs from the tank before they hatch. Don't worry, you can artificially hatch the eggs, they will hatch without the parents being present.

This is what you need to do. If the eggs have been laid on something that can be removed, like a piece of rock then take it out and place it in a small container that is big enough to cover the eggs to a depth of around 6 inches. You can be absolutely sure that the Oscars will not be happy about you taking their eggs so expect them to attack your hand.  You should fill this with water from the main tank making sure that it is in very good condition. You need to have around 5 inches of space all around the rock. If the eggs are on a thin rock then you need to prop the rock up so it is at an angle. You want the higher end to be around two or 3 inches. You then need to place an air stone under the higher end and try and set it so the bubbles are released around the eggs. You don't want to have the bubbles shooting up so fast that they disturb the eggs though.

You should then add some methylene blue to the water until it turns dark blue.  This is used to help prevent and treat fungus on eggs.  Keep the temperature at a constant level until the eggs hatch. After a while, the fry will fall of the rock, when they have all fallen off, remove the slate. Once the yoke sack has disappeared, you can start feeding them. You can now transfer the fry into their own tank now. This is now the crucial part of breeding Oscars. The tank doesn't have to be very big, 10 or 15 gallons will suffice. If you put them in a tank that is too large, they will not be able to find their food easily enough.

Nemo is growing rapidly

Like I have already said, if you don't feed your fry properly, they will all perish very quickly. You cannot feed them on normal fish food, you have to give them something that is small enough and full of nutrition.  Baby brine shrimp is what you should feed your babies. Brine shrimp can be  hatched out at home which will save you time and money going back and forth to the shops. Brine shrimp hatcheries are available commercially, one place you you can get them in the United Kingdom is CD Aquatics. Let me just say again that baby Oscars at this age need to eat a lot. As they get bigger, you can try new foods on them and they will get to the stage where you can be feeding them on things like bloodworm.

Steve Bell, a moderator on this website has made various Oscar Fish videos. He has also bred Oscar Fish successfully and has included some very good breeding sequences on one of his DVDs.  If you would like to purchase one of his DVDs, please follow the link below.

Oscar Fish tutorial DVDs