Pertaining to the oscar fish keeper?

Question

What kind of oscar fish or fishes do you have or have had, how big did they get, how big were their habitats(gallon wise) and what do you feed them.

jp, are you sure your oscar is 16 to 18 inches long? it seems a little unbelieveable...

Answer 1

I have camouflage oscar and an albino with pink stripes on tail...
Well when i bought it in the store it just sized smaller than my pinky finger. and after 2yrs up to now it sizebigger than my joined palm. about 16-18inches long... very fat indeed...
I dont know the galloon of water i put but to say i put it to my aqurium which i can put my self embended... I feed it with a flowerhorn food it really likes it. but sometimes an alive anchovy...

Answer 2

When I had my Oscar, like 20 years ago, it was a fast growing eating machine. It quickly outgrew the 55g tank I had and I had to give him away.

He grew like an Inch a month. i feed it cichlid food, crickets, grasshoppers, moths, worms and feeder guppies I bred myself.

Always bred your own live feeders.

You can only keep Oscars with fish that are big as or bigger than the oscar, even then some male oscars will beat up other bigger fish.

I really want to get a nice 150g tank and set up a pair of Tiger Oscars. I really miss my old pet and I barely had him a year.

Answer 3

I have had just about all the varieties of oscars, along with about 50 other types of New World Cichlids. The Oscars I had were in a 150 gallon tank and grew to about 14". I don't have the tank or the oscars any more, now I have a 500 gallon pond with 6" flowerhorns, along with two 75 gallon tanks with flowerhorns and a synspillum. The only thing I feed any of my cichlids is New Life Spectrum. http://fishlesscycling.com/forum/index.php?topic=20.0
Here are some pics of my current fish.

Answer 4

Oscars get up to 18 inches (but usually less). They will eat anything, but not everything is healthy for them. Feeder fish can often lead to hole in the head disease, so they should be avoided. Any insects like crickets, flies, and moths are good food along with a good Cichlid pellet. Also, frozen foods like bloodworms and brineshrmip are good. They need more than 50 gallons each, anything smaller will stunt their growth (leading to organ failure and premature death). Because of their ability to eat anything, they will often make their tankmates disappear. The only acceptable tankmates are larger fish. They can be aggressive if given too little room and their rapid growth (about 1 inch per month) can cause territory issues in temporary housing. They are very messy and require a canister filter rated for tanks nearly twice the size of the tank they are housed in. Do research before buying any fish, this will give you the best chance of having healthy fish. Good luck!

Directed towards Leilani: If they were in a 10 gallon tank for 2 years and both were only 8 inches, they were not healthy, they were massively stunted and lived drastically shortened lives.

Nosoop4u

Answer 5

I have two oscars (one albino, the other tiger)in a 125 gallon aquarium, however they are not fully grown yet, they are around 10 inches each right now and I have had them since Dec 06. I feed them cichlid pellets and sometimes frozen peas (they love those). For a while I would give them feeder fish, however that caused more problems with chemical levels than anything. They do great without the live food. Good Luck.

Answer 6

i've had a total of three two tigers (one red and one 'wild' type) and an albino red.
a 55 is the BARE MINIMUM FOR 1 FISH! and you need really good filtration. the bigger the better but i would never keep two in anything less than a 125 for agression's sake. they can be kept with other fish but again in larger tanks.
i have mine (tiger) in a 75 with two pangasius cats that i plan on giving to my LFS (which has a 2000 gallon tropical pond) when they get around the 1' mark. silver dollars usually work as well. and they can be kept fairly easily with most large catfish.

Answer 7

At one time I had a total of eight large oscars in a 100 gal tank in hopes of getting a breeding pair. As a result, I got two breeding pairs of red tiger oscars. I fed them pellets and fresh prawn, crayfish, and snails from the pet store. I had five medium size (4 inch) red belly piranhas in my 50 gal tank...fed them feeder fish and beef heart and red grapes. Also had two large silver arrowana's in my 100 gal after selling my oscars...fed them cichlid pellets feeder fish and pinkies/baby mice.

ps. two male oscars will fight until one dies or severly injured and backs down. However two or more female oscars kept together will not fight.

Answer 8

LEILANI, how you can claim you love fish and admit you had two oscars suffer to death in a 10 gallon in one sentence is beyond me. Animal haters like you who are so oblivious make me sick.

Answer 9

I had two Tiger Oscars for about 2 years...I only had them in a 10 Gallon and they both grew to about 6-8 inches...I only fed them pellets...never live food...I love fish I have 11 feeder fish as pets lol. They only had live food once...a house gecko that got into the tank hood by mistake. Anyways...my Oscars were very healthy and crazy...I had to get rid of them because I was moving but they went to a lady with a large pond so Im sure their even more happy but I miss them. Oscars are awsome other then the fact that their aggressive fish so its hard to have them with anything else.

Answer 10

I've never had one, but I do know that they are probably THE lagrest cichlids in the cichlid family, and they require hundreds of gallons, and they can eat anything from guppys to fish food to mice, they eat a lot, and require a lot of care, and there are certian deseases you need to wa tch out for on oscars if you don't take good care of them