Oscars.. Maturity?

[Mollygirls]

Hi all,

Just a quick question.. My hubby has 4 oscars in a 125 gallon tank right now.. When will they sexually mature enough to tell if they paired off or not? They are about 4 - 5 inches..


Thanks..

 

[england]

usually around 6+inches, you could be very lucky and get a pair, or you could also be lucky and have all females, but if males there could be lots of fighting, good luck with it, got my fingers crossed for you's

 

[Mollygirls]

Thanks Nelly, I appreciate your help.. I told hubby and he said he couldnt be so lucky..LOL.. If they are all female it is possible to keep them all then?

We have a 125 gallon with 4 oscars and a pleco in it..

 

[england]

Not reccomended by a long shot, it takes alot of work keeping water clean, i did have 6 for a while in my 150us but it got to hard keeping on top of water changes, also you have the aggresstion factor to deal with aswell, id reccomend not doing that,

 

[Mollygirls]

We were under the impression that 2 would pair off and we could keep them and have to rehome the other 2.. Or buy another 125 gallon if we got lucky enough to have them pair off as well.. We do water changes once a week on all our tanks.. Is that enough for the oscar tank?

Hubby is thinking about building one right into the wall and making the storage room part of the fish tank?? The wall is 7 1/2 feet long and he could go about 5 feet wide.. I just smile and say "do what you like with your fish honey" LOL To be honest the oscars scare me half to death as everytime I feed them they jump at me..

I guess we will have to wait and see what happens as they grow and decide from there what to do with them..Right now they all seem to be getting along quite well. They dug a hole in the gravel and "sleep" there at night all mushed in together.. Its really interesting to see..

Thanks for all the insight.. Its great to be able to attain information to make these fish as happy as they can be in a tank rather then in their natural habitat!

Oh and on a side note.. Hubby and I went to the LFS today and saw Black oscars.. I have never seen them before or heard of them.. Red, tiger and albino are the only ones I have seen/heard of.. Mind you I live a sheltered fish life..LOL

Thanks again Nelly.. I appreciate you taking the time to answer my questions that have been probably asked a million times before..

 

[england]

Thats what were here for , black oscars, as in pure black, or does it look reddish tinge, as some red oscars look black at first,even tiger oscars can come with no colour, then you have "wild oscars"straight from the wild, these are stunning and do not have much colour at all only the tail eye

that sounds great, imagine the oscars etc you could have in that size tank, you can do it, theres a great thread in the diy section of a bloke in american exstending his already huge cichlid tank, have a look for it,

 

[Mollygirls]

Ohh I am not sure if they had a tinge of red to them.. I will have to go back and look now.. Hubby seems to think they had white on them but we need to go investigate now..LOL..

When we first joined the site hubby and I checked out the diy section.. This is when he started dreaming about what he could build.. I will have to get him to check it out again.. We will need to spring clean and find another storage room in the house but I am happy to let him do it.. I do find the oscars fun to watch.. not fun to feed!! They really like thier pellets and will jump to get them! YIKES!

You can add other types of fish in the tank with oscars??? We assumed it was oscars only and then only 2 if you are lucky.. Hubby and I kinda jumped into fish keeping without a lot of research to be honest but I am sure you have realized that..LOL..

I dont think he will add anything in the 125 gallon as we were told that even 125 gallons isnt really big enough for 2 oscars.. I imagine we will need a swimming pool if we want to add anything..

 

[Mollygirls]

Hubby and I did a quick google search to see if we could compare a picture to the oscars we saw at the LFS.. Here is a link to a picture that matches the ones at the store..

http/www.aquascapeonline.com/ProdImages/...A/oscar%201.jpg