Our friend the Oscar.

Age : 24 Joined : 05 Jun 2008 Posts : 45 Location : USA

This is a little info on our friend the Oscar (Astronotus ocellatus).

Astronotus ocellatus aka The oscar cichlid can be found in Amazon, Parana, Rio Paraguay, and Rio Negro rivers of South America.

The oscar is a carnivorous fish and likes meaty types of food. They will eat many different types of frozen, live and dry food. Oscars get rather large and should be fed a high quality pellet food. From my own experience I find that my oscars love frozen brine shrimp, Sliver sides, any type of cichlid flake, hikari cichlid gold and hikari cichlid Bio Gold.

In my opinion no fish should be fed feeder fish from your local fish store. You just don't know what types of diseases these fish carry. If you want to feed your oscar or any carnivorous fish feeder fish my recommendation is to breed your own that way you know that your fish are not sick.

Oscars start out small but don’t let that fool you! They max out at 14 inches and grow 1 inch a month until they reach 8 inches and then they slow down a little. With that in mind I would suggest a tank no smaller than 75 gallons for 1 oscar and 100-125 gallons for 2. They will need frequent water changes and do splash water in their eagerness for eating so its good to have a cover for your aquarium. Oscars are curious fish that love to play and have there own idea where your decorations should go. If they don’t like where you put things they will simply move them. Larger rocks work well but plants will be up rooted and left floating in your tank. I wouldn't spend too much time on making your substrate look perfect either. Oscars like most cichlids love to dig!

Sexing your oscar is impossible do to the fact that the females look just like the males. If your looking to breed oscars the best way I find is to get 6 to 8 juveniles and let them pair off on their own. With that said oscars are open spawners and egg layers. They will attach there eggs to rocks or on the glass of your tank. The male and female are great parents and both will take care of there young.

Oscars are primarily vulnerable to Head and Lateral Line Erosion (HLLE) also known as hole-in-the-head (HITH) disease. HITH causes pits and cavities on the face and head. My thoughts on what causes HITH are poor water conditions such as lack of filtration and less frequent water changes. If you want to know more on HITH there is a great article written by Adam Dagna of worldcichlids.com titled "Everything you ever wanted to know about HITH / HLLE... but were afraid to ask!"

In conclusion Oscars are one of the greatest cichlids you could ever own. They have great personalities and can be taught many tricks like fetch, eating from your hand and will even let you pat them. They are the dog of the fish world.

Thanks for reading! Mike D pirat