Oscar Fish Care Guide And Breeding

Oscar Fish Overview, Care Guide, Tank Mates, Aquarium Setup, Water Conditions, Diet & Breeding:

Oscar fish shows aggression & aquarists keep them in aquarium because of their beautiful colors & look, & they also have better IQ & their social behavior is appreciable.

They need high care & need expert aquarists. Oscars are omnivorous & they eat easily but it is difficult to find the right mate.

Oscar is a worthy fish that you can keep in aquarium & they look very beautiful.

 

Category	Rating
Care Level	Medium
Behavior	Aggressive / Territorial
Color Form	Diverse
Lifespan	Up to 20 Years
Size	Up to 12 inches
Food	Omnivore
Family	Cichlidae
Min. Aquarium Size	55 gallons
Aquarium Water	Freshwater
Tank Mates	Big, Passive Species

 

Oscar fish is a cichlid specie so they are from Cichlidae family. Majority of the Cichlids are from Africa or South America.

Oscars are found in Brazil, Ecuador, Columbia, French Guiana & Peru. You can find them in Amazon rivers & its neighboring locations.

Oscar Fish Care Guide:

Oscars can be found in many fish shops, & you can get one for less than $10.

Oscar is territorial & addition of this fish can be dangerous.

Mating different varieties of Oscars can give birth to various colors & patterns. Life span of Oscar is up to 20 years if you take good care.

They attack other fish that try to enter their territory which can result in a fight. Also during mating & eating, they can be aggressive to other fish.

They swim in the mid-levels of aquarium most of the time, & can also search for food in the gravels. They are messy fish & can uproot aquarium plantation & mess with decorations in aquarium while finding food.

Setting up aquarium correctly can allow you to keep Oscar with other mates easily which tremendously reduces chances of aggression from Oscars.

Choose a filter that creates strong current because Oscar likes to be in fast flowing water.

Oscar Fish Aquarium Setup:

Setup your tank that copy the same natural conditions of the wild. In the wild, Oscars live in warm fresh water with neutral pH. Setup soft substrate with rocks & caves at the bottom of your aquarium. Also Oscars enjoy planted aquariums. Setting up your aquarium like Oscars native water is not difficult.

Set up a layer of soft substrate at the bottom of aquarium. Make sure that substrates are fine grained, so setting up sand in this aquarium is a good idea. Oscars like digging so in case of coarse gravels, your fish might get scratched.

Setting up caves will allow Oscars to hide underneath them. Make sure you firmly setup decorations & plantations in your aquariums so Oscars can’t uproot them.

Oscars do not eat plants that much in case other diets are available but there are greater chances of uprooting them if you put them in aquarium. Floating plants are a safe addition to Oscar tank & you can choose hornwort.

Best water conditions for Oscar is between 74 to 81 degree Fahrenheit, 6 to 8 pH, & 5 to 20 KH.

Only a filter is required for cleaning aquarium water & also a heater can keep water warm. Have an aquarium light too & turn it on during day. Too much lighting can help in developing algae. Cover your aquarium top with a lid because Oscar can jump out or could fight against other fish & force them to escape the tank.

The minimum requirement of aquarium size for Oscar is 55 gallons. Anything smaller can put stress on the fish & could make them sick or aggressive.

Oscars are territorial fish so they need lots of free space in aquarium. 55 gallon tank is required for one Oscar & add 20 to 30 gallons more water if you want to keep an extra Oscar fish.

 

Tank Mates for Oscar Fish:

Oscars are not good friends. While living in South America they live in regions that are mostly diverse & they used to be with large number of fish.

Keeping Oscar in aquarium with mates is not easy. Due to small space they show more aggression. Keeping Oscar with other Oscars is not a bad idea in case you have a large aquarium.

If you want more fish in aquarium then select species that are big, passive in nature that are able to defend themselves & can escape the attack of territorial Oscar.

Aggressive behavior of Oscar cause other fish to live in fear, so select passive fish. You can keep other large fish including Arowanas, Convict Cichlids, Firemouth Cichlids, Bichirs, Green Terrors, Jaguar Cichlids, Silver Dollars etc.

Fellow cichlids are best friends of Oscar. If you want to keep smaller fish in Oscar aquarium, then they will vanish from the aquarium. Little invertebrates will disappear too if you keep them in Oscar aquarium such as Shrimp & Snails.

You can keep Oscars in one aquarium & this seems to be the best choice. Oscar will fight against another Oscar if it enters its territory. Ensuring lots of free space in aquarium will lower this tension.

 

Oscar Fish Diet:

Oscars are omnivorous & love to eat any diet. Oscars in rivers eat small fish & also plant debris. Also they eat little insects & crustaceans.

In tanks they like to eat flakes / pellets. Their diet has all nutrition that the fish need.

More choices include live / frozen diets which consist of protein. You can offer them brine shrimp & daphnia. Live food is a special diet for Oscars because they love catching their prey.

Oscars love to eat green vegetables that you can chop down & feed them. Green vegetables are also used for preparing a homemade diet for Oscars.

Though they could eat plants debris, but mostly they don’t eat them if there are other special foods available.

The ideal food for Oscars is a mix of different diets to offer a range of nutrition which they will need for healthy life.

Offer food to Oscars a couple of times every day, in small amounts that can be eaten up within 2 minutes.

 

Oscar Fish Breeding:

Breeding Oscars in aquarium is very difficult. Oscars don’t like to mate easily due to their picky nature, so adding just male & female Oscars won’t be enough for breeding.

Purchasing an already established pair from the fish store is the best option. You can also raise a collection of babies, as they are raised in community then find perfect mates. However, this is not an easy choice because young Oscars will take time to mature & would take around 1 to 2 years to get fully matured & ready for breeding.

Oscars like to breed in the wild usually in rainy season. If you want to establish rainy season in tank, then lowering tank temperature a couple of degrees can help. Change water after every couple of days with water sprinkling over the top for a few minutes every day will help in reproducing rainy season.

When they are ready to lay eggs, they will clean the surface of rock where female can lay eggs. The largest Oscar female can lay up to 3000 eggs.

Oscar pair will protect the eggs until they hatch. Male Oscar guard the eggs from other fish.

Shift little Oscars to another aquarium that have a sponge filter. Offering food 2 to 4 times every day will help them in fast growth.