CichlidFish.com - Fish That Think.

Hello everyone, I'm new to the forum. My name is Emma and am from Western Australia.
I've got two oscars, and I've had them for 6 weeks tomorrow, I love them!!

Their names are Boff (male) and Scout (female). They are a mated pair of oscar according to the shop keeper. One of the shop keepers guessed that Boff was about 16 months old when I got him, so he's probably about 17 1/2 months now . Boff is approx. 17 ½ centimeters (6.8 inches) not including the tail and Scout is approx. 13 ½ centimeters or 5.3 inches (not including the tail), they both get along pretty well, they are always swimming together, and they are in a 300 litre (AU) tank (approx. 280 at water level) = 5ft by 18 inches x 18 inches

I would really love to breed them, is there any advice I can have from people who have successfully bred them before??

Yesterday I put this clay ceramic pot base (looks like a plate) in the tank upside down and pushed all the gravel around the edges so it looks like a flat white round peice of slate, because I don't have a proper bit of slate, and I've put the temperature up to 28 C (82 F). All yesterday they wouldn't go near the clay plate but last night when I turned their light off they went over to it and they started to clean the gravel off it. Usually they will shovel gravel in the tank here and there for a while when I turn off the light, but this time they were doing it alot longer. Most of today they have been cleaning it too, which is very unusual as they only do the gravel digging after I turn off the light. So now they are not bothering about gravel digging but they are paying alot of attention to the clay circle.

What's funny though is that they'll spend all this time getting the gravel off and once all the gravel is off they will still pretend to "clean" it and they end up putting gravel on it again by accident.

I moved the clay circle a little bit more towards the middle of the tank as it was right at the end and I think it was hard for them to keep it from getting more gravel on it.
They have stopped now for about 2 hrs mind you and there is a small amount of gravel that I've deliberately left there, since I've moved it.

I was just wondering is there any ways I can encourage them? They have been doing the body shiver and the puffing up of the gills alot more since I've turned the temperature up.

P.S I know that Scout might not be old enough yet to lay eggs

This is Boff



This is Scout


This is the clay circle they have been cleaning




I love this photo




This is my tank


I'm sorry about the photos I don't know how to photograph fish properly with my digital camera.

Very pretty fish! From your descripiton of their sizes, though, I doubt that they're 16 months old. More likely less than a year. I haven't found you need to do much to encourage them to breed. Just keep your water conditions in order, and give them a good diet, and they'll most likely work things out themselves (assuming you have a male & a female). Good luck, and keep us posted!

Like Dan said not a lot needs to be done to spawn oscars,except keep them feed and in clean water.
More frequent water changes often help though.

Good Luck,nice looking oscars.

From my experience with Oscars you seem to have two females:(
The male Oscar has a hump on his head and the female has a smooth head. Also the male has a more pointed anal fin, the females is more rounded. My pair at about 11 inches have just laid their first brood:) I am so excited:)
Sue