How to House Oscars

properly

                                                     (this is a beautiful wild oscar in a tank similar to its natural habitat)

In this section I will talk about how to provide your oscar with a tank that is suitable for his/her needs.

First off you have to understand that oscars are extremely large fish for aquariums so that means they need a big tank.  As a rule of thumb for all fish big fish=big tank.  Oscars when they are small look cute and seem to beg you to take them home, so many novice aquarists think "wow that little fish will be good for our 10 gallon community tank."  Which is ok if they plan to move the oscar into a bigger tank before he gets to big.  But many people know nothing about oscars when they buy them for community tanks and the dealers at the pet shop usually don't tell you that they get 12".  And once they buy that cute little oscar in a few months there community tank is a single oscar tank.  Then the novice aquarists may think that the fish is just mean and might give up the whole tropical fish hobby altogether or maybe just give up on oscars. So that is why you should learn as much about fish keeping as possible.

Now what you've all been waiting for the size of the tank.  Here are the hard facts: you can keep oscars 1 or 2 in a 30 gallon tank but it is not good for you or you oscar, the oscar will be unhappy and not be able to live life to the fullest and you will have to take so much time to keep the tank clean and healthy it's really not worth it.  Now a 40 gallon tank would be fine for one oscar if thats all you want.  A 55 gallon is good for two but the for the oscars to be completly happy and to thive you will need a bigger tank.  The gallonage is sufficient for the but unless you get it custom made a 55's dimensions aren't good.  Example the with of the tank is only 12 or 13" and an oscar can get 12" so it won't be comforatable when it turns around.  An 80 gallon tank is great if you want a pair and maybe a pl*co to clean up after them.  In an 80 they will have suffient swimming room and will be happy.   But if you are the type of person that goes all the way when you get into a new hobby, I would recommend a 150 and up. But remember the bigger the tank the more filtration it will need.

Here is a rule of thumb applying to oscars for every inch of oscar not including there tail you should have 2 1/2 gallons of tank space.  Because of there bulkiness.  Other fish that aren't as messy are good with 1 gallon per inch.

Remember Keeping oscars won't be cheap so if you still want some and you don't have enough money to buy everything they will need, then you should wait until you can or buy the essentials as follows.

these are the bear essential for keeping oscars.  I would recomend Small one like 1 to 2 inches because they don't make as much of a mess as larger ones.  and when they are that small you will have time to save up to buy larger filters and other necessaties for large oscars.

1. a tank (or if you live in Florida an outdoor pond.but I don't know anything about that.)

2. a power filter that can turn the water at least 5 times per hour. i.e. for a 20 gallon tank you would need a filter that pumps at least 100 gallons per hour.   And remember if you have other tanks and don't want to run them anymore and have several small power filters you can use a combination of them that adds up to the right amount of gph.

3. a heater usually go by the wattage.  4 watts per gallon of tank water is very efficient.

4. a light if you have the tank in a room where the light in the room is bright enough for the oscars to see there way around that is good for a while because oscars don't like bright light anyway but if you want your tank to look nice use an aquarium light.

5. some type of cover for the tank that is not air tight. like plastic wrap or something like that I know that it sounds stupid but some people did it before and found out why not to do it when they discovered there fish were dead.

6. a sturdy flat place for the tank.

7. and probally some test kits and chemicals for chlorine and amonia.

Basically that is all you need for small oscars but if you want them to grow big and be healthy then get other things when you have the money.  Like another filter. I will talk more about this in the filtration section.

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