CichlidFish.com - Fish That Think.

We have a pair of Oscars. We used to call them Oscar and Felix, but now I'm not so sure that they shouldn't be Oscar and Felicia. From everything I've read, I think our Oscars are "pairing up". They've done it all...the twitching and shivering, locking lips, cleaned off the rock in their tank, one seems very protective of the other. I'm not sure what to expect but we love these guys. I'm hoping to get more insight from here. We're just letting them do their thing and waiting to see.

Hi, Kitten, and welcome to the forum!  We look forward to hearing more about your fishy doings!

Tanks...hee hee...sorry, couldn't resist... I can't say for sure what they are doing after all I've read. But I'm pretty sure that we might have a pair here. Is it normal for the female to lose color when she gets ready to lay eggs? She seems paler to me.

Oscars are very expressive with their body colors.  One of the fun things about keeping them is learning about how they express themselves.  Like all animals, they use body language a lot.  Keep your eyes on their general behavior as well as the color changes.  They'll teach you a lot about how they're doing.

I'm not sure if you can see these guys well here, but this was taken of my babies about a month ago...they are a little bigger now....Oscar is hiding behind Felixia...he's a little more bashful. She is very outgoing and lovable. First one to brush up against you when you clean the tank...all that good stuff...the personalities of these two are simply amazing!!

DanRad wrote:Oscars are very expressive with their body colors.  One of the fun things about keeping them is learning about how they express themselves.  Like all animals, they use body language a lot.  Keep your eyes on their general behavior as well as the color changes.  They'll teach you a lot about how they're doing.

Yeah...I've picked up on their body language a lot. But not yet on the colors.

They have very distinct ways of letting me know when the aren't happy with what I'm doing. Felixia has even been know to look at me and then go sit with her nose up in the back corner of the tank until I walk away from whatever I'm doing that she disapproves of. They don't really sulk after a tank cleaning, but she lets me know she doesn't appreciate my cleaning her tank over the way she does it...ha ha ha...But she also let me know when she likes what I'm doing too. They both seem to like when I sit next to the tank with my hand on the side. She'll rub back and forth where my hand is until I put my hand in the tank then she'll rub up and around my hand a couple of times and then go about her business. She's too funny... :-) Oscar pretty much just acknowledges that I'm there and then hides behind her.