Public Service Announcement: Why an oscar needs a big tank

I'm currently treating one of my oscars for a mild case of pop-eye so I have him in a 20 gallon hospital tank. I just thought this would be a good time to illustrate one of the reasons why you shouldn't get those cute little baby oscars for your small tank.

Keep in mind that Charlie isn't even full grown yet. He's 10" SL (12" TL).


12" long fish in a 12" wide tank. Why even a 55 gallon tank isn't all that great for an oscar.


-Chelle

 

wow, nice looking fish. hope it heals. yea, t_chelle is right about the whole oscar thing an these pictures prove it. good idea with the pioctures t_chelle, so now alot of people know what you are talking about with the potential size of an oscar.

 

Really good picture and thank god someone posted about it, way to many people buy oscars and kill them by putting them in tiny tanks, do some research. nice job with the pics chelle

 

Nice picture man, thanks for the tip too.

 

I've come across a lot of people who simply can't picture their little 1" baby as a 12" - 14" monster so they don't understand why they need such large tanks. So since I have to keep him in the 20 gallon for a few days, I though it would be a good opportunity to get a visual aid.


And while I'm at it, here's another visual aid:

4' long 55 gallon tank (ignore the fact that I had africans & oscars together, that was before I knew any better)
July 16, 03 - Sherbert is about 3"


4' long 75 gallon tank
December 11, 03 (5 months later) - Sherbert is 7 1/2"


Oscars really do grow about 1"/month (up until about 6", then they slow down).

-Chelle

 

Gorgeous Tank! must have taken alot of setup, I love thoes plants too. Thats an astounding amount of groth, ive never gotten into oscars since my budget is tiny and the lfs near us charges alot, so i didnt know they got THAT big quickly.

 

Thank you. Actually both tanks look a bit different now. And the only live plant was the dwarf lilly in the 55 (on the far right) but the africans eventually decided it tasted good and they completely devoured it in 3 days.

-Chelle

 

Ah well we all need a midnite snack once in awhile, and thanks for the PM, i descided to stick the heater in their afterall


EDIT: are thoes shells on the bottom? god shells would look nice in the tank im currently cycling.

 

Yes, they're shells. But you have to be careful with shells because they'll slowly disslove and increase your pH and hardness. Which is fine for african cichlids, but not so great for most other fish.

-Chelle

 

How'd you go about moving such an enormous fish? Ive always heard about them beaing moved to hospitals etc but ive never seen a net big enough for that kind of job. Im gonna go see if they have a bag of shells at A.C Moore later on today.

 

When I moved them from the 55 to the 75 (they were about 5" at the time), I drained most of the water, and layed a clean, soft towel on the bottom of the tank, waited for them to swim over it, and lifted up the corners making a fishy sling. It wasn't too difficult but they still managed to splash water on the ceiling.

A few months ago I decided to change the substrate in the 75 so I tried the towel method again, but unfortunately they remembered and didn't want to go anywhere near the towel so it took forever to catch them.

This time for Charlie I used a really big fishing net. It still wans't easy because he is so big & strong and kept trying to hide behind Sherbert ("Take her, not me!"). I ended up getting soaked, water was on the floor 6' away from the tank (took 2 swiffer pads to mop it up), and I managed to cut my finger on one of his fins. I'm really dreading moving him back to the 75 so I'm doing some research into mild fish anesthesia. Not to knock him completely out, but at least calm him down some.

-Chelle

 

Sheesh, well that towel idea was very creative, I just couldnt imagine moving a fish that large, ive seen some caplits at petsmart that is supposed to sorta clam fish down (sorta the same effect on the fish as "valium" has on humans) but it says it can kill smaller fish like tetras, guppies so im not sure how much of the medicine the fish would carry over and the other thing is it would take some heavy dosage, like 2 asprin sized pills per 5 gallons, dunno how long it takes to have an effect. Goodluck

 

oooh chelle I can not beleve I didnt post this earlier, alright so my neighbor (hes 15) as am i, alright well his dad is a very well paid lawer and as my parents put it "he loves his son to death but hasn't a clue on how to parent" anyway he literally shovels cash into his wallet and recentally he descided he wanted a fish tank (he got the tank about 4 months ago) anyways I went over to his house and saw he had 3 "blueberry" oscars. I bit my tounge and didnt tell him athat they were painted, their were bigger obstacls to tackle. The tank was a 20 gallon one and quite frankly I was amazed he managed to stick 3 oscars in their. I told him that he should return them soon because they would get too big for the tank very quickly, of course he got very defensive as is his nature and we ended up arguing over it, after seeing this stirng I emailed the url to him quickly and he sent it back saying "their not experts, and thats not an oscar" as I said this was about 4 motnhs ago, anawys today a very humble, and also shakey I might add preston shows up asking me what to do, when i looke d in his tank the things could barely move around and had ick PLUS the worst case of HITH i have ever seen. So his dad refusing to buy a new tank poured a large amount of moeny into medication etc which wasnt working and that tank was really small. Anyways one had died and his dad works in baltimore MD and some of you may know has a rather famed aquarium housing everything from sting rays, to sharks and its just MASSIVE. So, for a fee they took the oscars. Thought I might share that since this fits in so very well. (I still do not know how they survived for 4 motnhs but they pulled it off)

 

At least they're in a better home now.

-Chelle

 

erm... that post was painfully short, did i say something wrong?

 

Sorry, I was just heading out the door and didn't have time to type a lot.

You did the right thing trying to inform him even if he didn't listen until it was almost too late. It's a shame that people are unwilling to take proper care of their fish. It's odd that some people will take more care to see that their pets like dogs & cats are happy but when it comes to fish (which actually require a lot more care than dogs & cats) they just throw them in some water and think the fish will be fine. Granted, it's not always the person's fault. There's lots of LFS employees giving out bad info and lots of myths floating around (ie "fish grow to the size of their tank"). But when people are told the correct info but don't want to accept it because of their pride and the fish end up suffering, it's a shame.

-Chelle