A very intelligent fish that can recognize its owner, the heavily built Oscar is an all-time favorite among aquarium hobbyists. Originally imported from South America, most Oscars for sale are now tank-bred. A large aquarium of at least 70 gallons is required to house a pair of Oscars.

The Oscar fish has his own ideas on how to decorate what he considers his home (your aquarium!) he will grab any object including small rocks and plants (doesn’t care whether they are natural or artificial) and spit them out of the tank if he doesn’t like them -a deep sand bottom and few large rocks will save you a lot of headaches.- Oscars have hearty appetites and should only be kept with fish that are the same size or larger; smaller fish soon become a quick snack for the Oscar. Other South American cichlids and large catfish make good tankmates.

Occasionally the Oscar will pretend he’s dying and will lay down on the bottom of the aquarium (don’t worry oscars are excellent actors) he will wait for small fishes to get closer, those naïve enough to buy his tricks will not live long to tell their story; although some people recommend feeding them live goldfish and guppies I personally do not like the idea as you take a real chance of introducing diseases, instead you can feed them vegetarian cichlid pellet, peas, lettuce (this is important to prevent hith disease) blended beef heart, earthworms and shrimps.

When breeding them be aware that some times males can kill the female in typical cichlid fashion. Breeding Oscars is easy as long as the water is clean and you raise the temperature from the normal 25°C (77°F) to 28°C (80°F). The female will choose a flat rock to lay her eggs (about 1000 eggs) and the male will fertilize them.
The opaque eggs will turn transparent in 24 hours and hatch after 2 or 3 days.

Watching a pair of Oscars breeding is an experience that is both thrilling and full of action. Over a period of several days the couple will work nonstop and build mountains of gravel around the aquarium. Like typical lovers they will chase each other, perform courtship dances and occasionally argue and fight. All these mood swings will be accompanied by intensifying color changes in the patterns on their skin.

Infertile eggs are white in color. As weird as it may seem, at times 2 females can engage in mating behavior.

Please remember that water quality is extremely important. A 25% daily water change and prompt removal of all food residues is mandatory, not only as a prior condition for spawning but especially after eggs and fry are present. When they are free-swimming offer the fry newly hatched brine shrimp several times per days.

By Federico Soriano