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I have two mature oscars with the sex unknown. I have been scrutinizing them over the past couple days. They have gone from extremely affectionate to lip-locking and severe biting of the fins and body. I thought it dangerous to leave them in the same tank together, so I took one of them out for 36 hours. I just put the one back in the same tank tonight, and the two immediately came together, and started flexing their gills, raising their dorsal fins, and making their entire body quiver. They lip-locked somewhat, but it was mostly show today. And now, I just did a 50% water change, and the pair has resorted to their affectionate ways once again.
I guess my question is: do you think that these fish (obviously with no visual one's answer is limited) are of different sex, and regardless of the sex, is this kind of behavior dangerous for them, and what does this mean?
I know it's a loaded question, but any insight would be greatly appreciated.

jase

Hi Jase,

You did the right thing to separate them when they get too violent. And yes a male and female pair can sometimes get violent like that. Or it can mean that you might have two males if they fight for long periods and sometimes get very vicious. Usually you can leave them alone if they don't cause too much damage to each other. If they start biting each others tails and sides though and not just liplock it's probably a good idea to separate them for a while. What size tank do you have them in? Also, what size are they? Do you have any pictures?

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Joe
www.cichlidfish.com

Yea seperating them is a good idea when they get too rough. You would think that after a while one would start to be submissive. Has one of the fish showed sign of weakness? Meaning running from the other O and hiding or even floating near the surface of the water on it's side?

Thanks for the insight. No neither of the fish have shown any signs of submissive behavior. Neither one has backed down as of yet. A couple of times I put my hand in the tank to break up the carnage, and--in fear--they swam away, but soon immediately swam back together and continued with the fight. As I said before, they are in separate tanks. They are though within seeing distance of each other. They both seem to swim to the closest corner and continue to swim against the glass. The one--who is in a 10 gallon--has become very destructive and will not stop his newfound habit of biting the thermometer, air stone, and filter tube. I think that he is upset because he is 10" long and is in such small quarters.

jason hes mad cause his tank is way !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! too small mine is only 4" but its in a 20 im saving for a 70 or semething huge like that for poor innnocent specter i suggest getting a tank divider and putting them in the halves of the tank or getting a whole new tank for one of them if im wrong though joe will correct me

Yep, I actually have one oscar about 10" also in a 10gallon, holding him there in quarantine for a bit till heals up....anyway I also noticed that he started biting the heater and yea he's bored and has nothing else to do, nothing else in his tank. When he's in the 55 or 65gallon tank he never attacks the heater.....but not sure if that's because of the bigger size or if he just would rather bite the other oscars instead

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Joe
www.cichlidfish.com

Thanks guys for the info. I still am not sure as to what I must do for the future. Do I: try to put them back together at a later time to see if there is still a chance of compatibility, or do I try to get another mature Oscar to try and still get a breeding pair. I would like to get a pair and start spawning these guys. My 150 gallon doesn't look good with only one Oscar.

Jase

Jase,

Can yout take some good pictures and scan them? I take it you don't really have a good guess as to their sex right now? Try putting them together again to observe them. As long as one isn't diseased you can put both in the same tank and use some kind of tank divider. Tail quivering accompanied by tail slapping is a good sign, also very good sign of a pair is gill flaring and "pushing" eatch other mouth on mouth without biting, with mouths a bit puckered or something not completely open. If they're out trying to rip each others lips apart or biting tails, sides, or whatever they can grab that's not good ........they're both about the same size?

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Joe
www.cichlidfish.com

Hey Joe,
Yes these two Oscars are about the same size. They both come out to be about 9-10" long. The tail quivering and lip-locking I know is a good sign, but I think that those attributes may be negated when one takes into account the fact that they bite eachother's lips with a vengence. Enough to take skin off of their faces. Like I said before, they were completely dossil for over a month. They showed affection comparable to a mother with a newborn, and suddenly turned on eachother. These bipolar activities have this novice confused. I am ready to get going on my new-found hobby of raising Oscars, and I am wondering if I should just cut my losses and get another Oscar and hope that it is compatible with one of the others?
I am not able to get pictures on the internet because my scanner is not working.

Any more insight would be appreciated Joe, and thanks for your info.

Jase

wanna chat ?

Jase,

Do this, search on this bbs and main site for the posts where I described to people how to "induce" spawning, do everything "pretending" that you have a male and female and you want to induce spawning, ie do the temp trick I wrote about, the ammonia level trigger, feed high amount of protein etc....it may take about two weeks to get them ready....now IF during this time they TEAR each other apart pretty bad, do put a Tank Divider in there. It is possible that you do have a male+female even if they got violent, it happens...follow the spawning inducing stuff and see if you can invoke more "ritual" breeding behaviour other than just the rough lip thrashing...



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Joe
www.cichlidfish.com