Oscar Tank Setup and Care

Oscar is one of the most aggressive and fierce looking tropical fish. They can grow up to very large size some reaching almost 40cm in length and they are known to be highly incompatible with other common home aquarium community species, often attacking or making a good meal out of the other fish. Despite their aggressive behavior, certain Oscar fish can even recognize the owner who cares for them and approach enthusiastically upon seeing the owner. Sometimes they can even nibble and trying to swallow your finger but there’s nothing to worry about because it doesn’t hurt since the teeth is at the back of the throat.

Oscar has a very huge appetite and they love live foods and will generally stay away from fish pellets unless they are very hungry. Their ideal diet consists mainly of high protein feed like beef, chicken meat, krill, grasshoppers, earth worms and to certain extent, bloodworms as well. And because of this, the aquarium water gets dirty easily and as such, usually the feeding schedule that involves live foods is right before the aquarium cleaning and water change. If this is not strictly adhered to and the water is left with all the uneaten leftover food, it will foul easily and leads to spread of fish disease as a result of poor water quality. For me, what I always do to ensure that I can still keep Oscar with minimal hours of aquarium maintenance, is to control their feeding regime and allow them to enjoy live foods every 3 days interval and the rest of the days only strictly fish pellets.

Oscar also requires large aquarium tank for normal development and also to ensure that they reach their maximum size. Other than the reasons above, large tank will also mean that water quality is much easier to control and maintain. A good guideline is to allow 20 gallons of water for every Oscar that you intend to keep and remember that they thrive well in warm water with temperature ranging between 25 to 28degC. Normally the best aquarium setup for Oscar fish should have a heater so that water temperature remains constant all the time. Other than that, a high-powered aquarium filter is also needed to ensure that water stays clean. The tank setup should also have a bare bottom without gravel for easy cleaning and live aquarium plants are not needed at all since Oscar will destroy those easily. However, there is no harm to have a least some large rocks with driftwood, which will provide a natural hiding place for your fish.