when i started keeping oscars i, by chance, rescued two 6" tiger oscars from a friend who had no where to keep them. seeing them in that 10 gal tank they could bearly turn around in i decided to rehome them into an empty 30 gal i had. this had to be better than what they were in right? i thought i had lots of time to get a bigger tank for them. man was i wrong. one month later i picked up a 75 gal tank for them, since they outgrew the 30 really quickly, again thinking i had some time to think of a bigger tank. at this point i joined a forum(a really good one i might add) and started reading about how oscars really should be kept. i soon realized i didnt know anything about keeping these fish properly and so began my quest to make my o's as happy as i could short of bringing them back to the amazon. not being indepently wealthy i figured if i can build houses for other people(im a contractor by trade) i should be able to build an adequate home for my boys.well three month later i finally had there new 190 imp gal home built(72"x27"x27" with a 45 gal sump) and said there now they should be happy and my maintenance will be easier.sadly looking at them, there were about 11"then, i thought i need some tank mates for my boys but seeing how large they were i couldnt just put anything in with them i needed something that grew quickly so not to be eaten. my solution which seemed simple at the time was 2 more oscars. so now i have 4 oscars(2 tigers 12" 11", 1 red 6 1/2"and 1 albino tiger 6"
living in my new tank along with a 4 1/2 inch c.a.e. and a 4 1/2"rainbow shark. (yes i know im on the borderline of being overstocked)
the point to all this is, if before i had taken my fisrt two oscars i had done some RESEARCH on the fish i was getting i could have saved myself a lot of labour(water change on tanks that were too small) and money from buying tanks and filtration by just getting the proper size tank from the start and not doing the upgrade thing so often.
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