Oscar cichlid

[ger87410]

What causes aggression in these guys? Is it too little food? Overcrowding? Look at my sig and notice the 55g with the oscar. Overcrowding ain't the issue. How do you know how much to feed?

 

[Riley]

How big is your oscar? one of mine was agressive but as he got older and bigger he got wiser and not as agressive. and my other one is a bit smaller and younger
and hes very mean and allways starts fights with my big one and he isn't as smart and if somethings funny in the tank he'll just go in there trying to kill it but my older and bigger Oscar examines stuff and is way smarter like i said...what im going at is that you oscar will probably out grow his agression as he gets older

 

[ger87410]

He's about 4-5". I'm trying to introduce another into the tank that's only 1", but the big 1 won't let it rest if it's in the tank. Any ideas? How big are yours?

 

[Grams]

nothing really causes an oscar aggresion its just he was born with aggression, really because hes a chiclid.

 

[LoveMyOscar]

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[Vip]

Ive also noticed that warmer water creates higher agression, whats your temp at?

 

[CFC]

The smaller the tank the more the aggression increases as like with most larger cichlids oscars are driven by the need to occupy a territory. In a smaller tank the oscar will consider the entire tank its territory and will attempt to drive any other fish away, it will start with gill flaring and posturing but since the fish cannot leave this will quickly esculate to full blown attacks. Also as the oscar grows so does the size of its territory, a 3" oscar being kept in a standard 48" tank (roughly 40 gallon) may appear peaceful towards tankmates to start with but will quickly take over the whole tank as it starts to grow.
When kept in large tanks oscars are not aggressive at all and often become the victims themselves if they are kept with other cichlids and aggressive fish, i safely keep a 10" oscar in my 200 gallon tank and it happily co exists with a pike cichlid, 3 severums, 2 satanoperca jurapari and a mixed collection of catfish but gets bullied by a arowana which thinks it owns the entire tank.

 

[ger87410]

Here's my observations, the plecos are very clean fish, they just leave long turds everywhere. That doesn't become a problem since I do bi-weekly cleanings. The oscar is very messy and the plecos clean up after him. I think I didn't go about introducing the new fish right. I think next time in a couple of weeks when I try again, I'm going to do it right after a gravel cleaning. I have to move everything inside the tank around anyways. As far as the bioload goes, I've had to throw several other fish into the tank as a temporary home during a tank move and stuff. The fish was in there for a few weeks no problem. Everything stayed at 0. Plants were looking a touch better during this time though. I'll also try turning my tank down from 78 to 76 farenheit. Aggression is only ever a problem when I'm introducing new fish. They all live happily together and there's always several feet inbetween them. I think my tank size is fine for now as oscar only uses half the tank.