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Ok, my dad just gave me a young 4 inch oscar WITHOUT warning. But I put it by itself in a 29 gallon tank with an external power filter and no plants. After a little research I found that oscars grow about 1 " per month. Now I need to know about what size tank I need to get before he grows to his potential size since he will almost certainly outgrow the 29 gallon he is in.

Oscars are large, messy fish and require at least 70 gallons. While your oscar may be ok in the 29 for a while, you will need to upgrade the tank sooner rather than later to make sure that there is no stunting.
Good luck.

It'll need a 75 gallon with strong filtration. Though they say they grow 1"/month, once it hits 4" it'll grow about 2" or more a month till it hits a foot, then it slows down to about an inch again.

Jut the one Oscar on its own will need a 75 gallon as a baseline setup. If you can get a mate for it and put it in a 125, so much the better. Lone Oscars can becomne troublesome in much the same way as house bound Moluccan Cockatoos, because Oscars are intelligent fishes that need stimulation. if they become bored, they start doing things to relieve the boredom such as tossing the heater out of the tank.

Some intricate bogwood furnishings, arranged so that the Oscar can't cause a collapse by digging the gravel underneath them, are the way to go. Gnarled tree root type bogwood pieces will resemble the kind of features found in the Oscar's natural habitat, and go some way toward relieving the boredom. An Oscar will become a real pet if you devote time to it, and will even learn to do tricks such as ringing a bell for food!

Oh, and if my mentioning Moluccan Cockatoos has made your eyebrows raise, these are the Oscars of the bird world - they are big, highly intelligent, and need constant attention. They respond to neglect by issuing shrill screeching noises, which brings you into immediate conflict with the neighbours when they do, because they can deliver a whopping 140 decibels in full cry - they are as loud as a 747 on takeoff! In the wild you can hear them over a kilometre away when they're calling to one another ...


Panda Catfish fan and keeper/breeder since Christmas 2002

k thnx guys ill get a 75gallon tank asap

Oscars need a minimum of 55 gallons, with 75-100 being best.
Tell your dad that he went out and bought a fish
that has the potential to reach 12-16 inches!


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Bear in mind also that an Oscar packs a LOT of chunky muscular body mass as it grows. Which contributes in turn to a pretty heroic appetite, and an equally heroic ability to pollute the water with what comes out of the back end.

12 inches is easily within its reach, and 14 inches is a fairly common size for big males if they have space to grow, and when they are that long, they can be three and a half inches thick and as much as 8 inches deep. That's getting on for 400 cubic inches of body mass, which means that the fish itself displaces nearly two US gallons of water! That should put into perspective how cramped a 10 gallon is for an Oscar, and why the fish NEEDS at least 75 just for bare bones survival.

Put it in perspective, a full grown Oscar packs the same body mass as 1,045 Neon Tetras ...


Panda Catfish fan and keeper/breeder since Christmas 2002

Let me just say - i have a breeding pair of Oscars, fully grown, in a 75G tank. You don't need a bigger tank to keep them and keep them well. Mine seem to be spawning monthly right now You need the right dimensions on your tank - a minium of 2ft wide!!!! They're the only fish in the tank since my Moorii died

Keep in mind, it's a LOT of work. 2 * 15% water changes per week, a big canister filter and a 300G/hr power head type filter.

They're kept amused by various plants. They prefer to rip stuff out and chase it around than any other toy i've tried. The biggest winner i have right now is some pastic grass. It's also the most realistic fake plant i've ever seen... so the fish love it and so do i.

I got another question. Do oscars need any special lighting because mine doesnt move when the tank lite is on he just stays on the bottom and looks at his reflection in the glass.

Dim the lights or use a smaller wattage light bulb or fixture. Fish can become shy in bright lighting, being that in the nature they are more visible to predators.

Some sturdy floating plants such as large specimens of Pistia stratiotes would help here. Remember that in its home waters, the Oscar has little to fear from anything other than big Pimelodid catfishes and Erythrinids as far as other fish predators are concerned, but that fish eating birds are a considerable threat. For many fishes in the wild, death comes from above, so to speak, so floating plant cover provides them with additional security as it makes them harder to see. Plus, Oscars inhabit waters in the wild that have lots of nice underwater root tangles and in some cases, whole fallen trees, so bogwood decorations designed so as to mimio this environment will also help an Oscar feel nice and safe. From these tangles, in the wild, an Oscar will lurk awaiting smaller fishes to predate upon, and so such furnishings will not only provide security, but a sense of well being in the sense that the Oscar thinks it has a natural 'diner' to occupy for feeding purposes. Of couse, the Oscar won't need that, and pretty soon learns that the aquarist supplies it with all the food it can eat, so once that stage is reached, the Oscar starts becoming bold and inquisitive about its surroundings once it realises that food is plentiful and that predators are absent. When it realises that it is 'top dog' in the aquariu, that's when some of the more interesting management issues with respect to its native intelligence come to the fore.

An Oscar will live under bright lighting if it has cover and shaded areas to provide that additional measure of security. However, if you use sturdy floating plants for a juvenile, be prepared for it to trash them as it grows older and realises that it has nothing to fear. Which it will probably do as part of a game.

However you plan your furnishings (and this applies especially once you upgrade to larger quarters and the fish has aded some muscle mass to itself) make sure that the fish is unable to cause a catastrophic collapse of your decor. Remember that an Oscar is a powerfully muscled fish, and even at moderate sizes is capable of performing considerable feats of substrate excavation etc. A 12 inch male is an underwater bulldozer of prodigious proportions, and probably capable of taking smaller pieces of bogwood in its mouth and chucking them around! You might have to go to the trouble of cementing your decor in place for a big specimen, but then that's part of the fun of living with an Oscar.

Remember that Oscars have a fairly well developed sense of fun. Their idea of fun involving some hair raising rerrangement of your decor if they decide that this is possible. Live with this and enjoy your Oscar's larger than life personality.


Panda Catfish fan and keeper/breeder since Christmas 2002

The tips one decor above are good... but maybe just take a chill pill and give the fish time to adjust to it's new environment. You posted on the 27th saying you had this new fish, then again on the 29th. 2 days - give him time!

Dimming the light is a good idea in the interim while you figure out how you want to set your tank up. If you use a slightly larger substrate (like 3-4mm gravel) it'll be about 6 months before your Oscar gets the urge to dig. If you take away the "joy of digging", you'll need to make sure your fish has something else to keep it entertained. I use plants... but that's fairly expensive at about $30AUD/month.

once he does settle in and is looking like hes bored try a sqaush ball or 1 of those fake plastic fish with the led weight in them, mine use to love there ball

Why are you letting the oscar settle in.
It cant live in a 29g tank for more
than about 5 months.
You should return it asap unless you plan
to buy a 55-75g tank within the next 6 months.



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