Oscars????

How would one breed O's?
I know that you put 2 O's into a tank (1 male and 1 female) and a piece of slate so they can lay there eggs on but what else is needed?
What must the water be like, must it have a high PH or a low PH ext,ext....
what size tank will work for them?
must you put in Rocks and gravel or should it be bb tank??
Answers to these Questions will be greatly appreciated
Thanks

 

Hi Gareth - The Oscar is a South American cichlid - generally from Amazon, Orinoco, Rio Negro and other rivers, they prefer a slow moving water, pH 6-7, temp 23-27 degrees.

Breed at the higher temps and a cool water change should trigger spawning. Water parameters must be good and feed lots of live food or frozen to condition the fish.

If you do a bit of reading on the above rivers it should give you a good idea of what the fish would like...

 

I agree ,Higher temps,cool water changes and live and frozen food seems to do the trick.

 

thanks guys
I will goand read up about the rivers and start doing water changes that are a few degrees colder than the tank and see what happens because I feed pellets and bloodworms and ox heart to hem.

will the breed in a "community tank" because at this moment I have a 2m tank with 4 O's, clown knife a bala shark and a few plecos (4) o yes and 2 spotted cats. will they breed or should I move them to there own 1.2m tank?

 

The problem is really finding a breeding pair, since Oscars want to "test" their mates before even trying to makes babies.

Lip-locking is often confused with fighting, which it often turns out to be, when they choose not to match up.

Two males will fight endlessly for domination as well.

In your case I don't think you'll have much success while you have all 4 together. You'll need to split them up and try to pair them, and hope for the best.

Once you do find a pair though, you will be on to a winner.


Oscars are highly sensitive to water quality, whether breeding or not. Often crazy aggressive behaviour, or sulking is an indication that they are unhappy with water quality or tank size/space.

 

I'd love to see an Oscar sulk I can just imagine the face......or perhaps they turn their backs to you like some of my angels do when they don't get any bloodworm and the others eat it all before they get to it

 

I saw Gareth26 tank last night and WOW looks good and what I saw is that he might have a breeding pair because what I think a male is was shivering when one of the white O's came closer - am I correct if I say that is a sign or not ?

 

Actually they go very pale, and play dead. Often it's not nearly as fun as it sounds, as you constantly need to worry if something is really really wrong, or if they are just pissed off.

My previous pair used to splash me with water in the middle of the night, tank was next to my bed, if I turned all the lights off too quickly.

I had to go through a process of first putting the room light off, then putting the main tank light off, and only then putting the slightly dimmer night light off.

Otherwise there would be a massive wave generated inside the tank, which would then spill over the edge and out of the canopy...little bastards.

Yeah the shiver dance is a pretty good sign. The Albino/Lutino still needs to be interested though.

 

LoL - they sound like quite the characters Makes me want to get one or two myself but I will fight the urge.....no more space.......no more space.......no I can't fit another tank anywhere........

 

Your pool looks pretty good...

 

Now don't tempt me Sauron - that's not nice! How am I going to explain to my children why they'll be swimming with rather LARGE fishies in summer ?

 

if I want to split them can they breed in a 1.2m tank with a pleco as a tank mate?

 

Are you serious?:amazed: Does oscars REALLY throw tantrums like children?:wacko: If so they must be fairly intelligent little brats...

 

Oscars are very intelligent and have awesome personalities usually

 

They are really brats I had a few in a 1.2 tank and they were about 6-9 cm in size and one evening I heard a thump against my tank and as I turned around there it was one major crack from one corner of the tank to about the middle and it was the big O that was not happy about something and was swimming up and down.

 

Dead serious dude.

 

you can, but the pleco will more than likely chow the eggs during the night.

 

Great so as soon as my other 2m tank is up and running I will move the 2 O's in to there own 1.2m tank with no tank mates and just do a few water changes a week to keep them happy till they start to breed.

Thanks all

 

I would also try to keep the lightning pretty low, or non-existent if you are focussing on breeding.

 

Ok so should I use bb tank or can I put in pool filter stand with slate stones for them to lay there eggs against?

and I was going only for natural light ( sun light through the window).