Oscarfishlover.com

I get a fair few e-mails every week from people all over the world. 99% of the e-mails are health-related and I do my best to help. However, it does seem that there are still far too many people keeping fish in tanks that are just not big enough for an Oscar. Because the majority of people around the world keep small community fish, most aquatic centres don’t sell very large tanks, they normally have tanks up to around 100 gallons, normally a lot smaller than that. So people who are getting into Oscars either buy a tank that the shop has already, or they migrate from community fish to Oscars but don’t upgrade their existing tank. Obviously we try to educate people on Oscarfishlover that Oscarfish require large aquariums. However, not everyone is going to come across our website so many people have already purchased their Oscars by the time they come across this website.

Let’s hope that people thinking about getting Oscars come across this blog before they have bought a fish. So, exactly how big does a tank need to be if you want to keep one Oscar? This is quite a contentious issue on many forums and lots of people have our own opinion on how big the tank should be. 55 gallons is probably the most common size you will see floating around the forums. However, remember that 55 UK gallons is bigger than 55 US gallons or stop 55 US gallons is a little over 45 UK gallons, which in my opinion is too small for one Oscar. Even 55 UK gallons isn’t quite big enough in my opinion. If that’s all you can manage then with proper tank maintenance and good filtration, you probably could keep one Oscar. When I first bought Oscars, I put them in a 75 gallon tank. By the time they were 8 inches, it was obvious the tank wasn’t going to be big enough so I moved them into a 125 gallon tank. Obviously the big you can go, the better but a 75 gallons tank is just right for one Oscar and a couple of smaller tankmates. Stick a really good filtration system on there and you should be laughing. There are lots of companies around that manufacture different size aquariums. Juwel are a very popular manufacturer of complete set-ups, by this I mean the tank, filtration, heating and lighting. It just so happens that my first big aquarium was a Juwel Trigon 350 (77 gallons). There are numerous shapes and sizes of tanks in the Juwel range, the smallest less than 20 gallons, the biggest up to around 100 gallons. The biggest problem with purchasing one of these tanks for Oscars is a filtration isn’t really suitable for large and messy fish. The size of the tank is perfectly okay, the filtration is really only meant for community fish. I can say this with confidence because I remember that only after one week, the spongers looked like they had been sitting in a cesspit. So if you are going to set yourself up an Oscar tank, I would strongly advise you to buy everything separate and steer well clear of the complete and ready to go aquarium setups because you will only find yourself upgrading from the internal filter out and going for a much larger version in no time at all.

Now I’m not going to go through all the different types of filters on the market because there are loads and they all cost different amounts of money. What I will say is you get what you pay for. Okay a cheap filter might seem the way to go, just remember it will be running 24/7. My philosophy is to spend a little more at the beginning and get yourself a good quality filter and you shouldn’t have anything to worry about for quite a few years.

So remember, Oscars are large messy cichlids, they are more than capable of reaching lengths in excess of 12 inches (30 cm). You cannot keep fish like this in small amounts of water with an appropriate filtration system. One of the main reasons why I get so many health-related questions is because people are doing just this. Oscars are quite vulnerable to various diseases which are directly related to poor water conditions. If you want to keep your Oscar healthy for up to 15 years then give it a suitable home to live in. Big big big, not small small small.