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i have a 55gallon tank with a pair of 5inc red oscars very healthy..
i want to breed them but how old and big do the have to be befor they can breed??? any help is good...

7 inches i think thats what mark said in a other post

Hi and welcome to the forum.

Oscars reach a breading size, when they are around 7 inch's. This does not mean all oscar start at this size/age, however it seems to be the average. That being said, in order to breed, they first must be a male/female. Second they must pair off. This means they will lip lock, (note Oscars also lip lock when the fight), tail slap, and will clear gravel to build a nest for eggs. Sexind Oscars is not easy, the surest way is via venting. Head shape, fin size, and eye spots, can also be used to identify a male from a female.
With the later, it helps if you know the history of the fish you have. It would be easier to sex a brother/sister, than two Oscars of unkown origin. In the wild the males will have several eyespots from the caudol spot, running up to under their dorsal fin. This generally does not occur however on Oscars that are not breed in captivity. A 55 gallon has been used for breeding, howver you will require lots of filtration, and do a lot of tank maintence.

Originally posted by oscar86
i have a 55gallon tank with a pair of 5inc red oscars very healthy..
i want to breed them but how old and big do the have to be befor they can breed??? any help is good...

Hi Oscar86, and Welcome to the Forum!! Fuzzy and Daoscar are correct, 7 inches. However, with Oscars there are always exceptions -- they love to prove us wrong as soon as we think we have them figured out!

Here's a copy-and-paste from my website in regards Oscar breeding. Most of the information is gleaned from Neal Pronak's little book Oscars, published in 1993:

Breeding Oscars is pretty much a matter of leaving them alone and letting them do their thing. The most trying task for the aquarist is finding a mating pair, which is a gamble in any case. If your Oscar is adult in size, and you want him or her to breed, it becomes a very trial-and-error process to find a mate. You need to know whether you have a male or female, and that is a difficult determination in itself; you need to be able to sex the intended partner correctly. Then, even if by the Grace of God you do have opposite sexes, THEY have to want to mate.
Probably the most common and effective method of putting together a mating pair of Oscars is to buy 6 or 8 young specimens (about 1 inch in length), and allowing them to grow up together. The likelihood that you have both males and females is good, and the chances of a mating pair forming is also good. You need to have a plan for the "extra" fish after your pair forms -- selling them back to the LFS, giving them to friends, moving them to other aquariums -- because, as you know, 8 Oscars would need an aquarium the size of your garage after they become adults.
A mating pair becomes evident because of mating "play", which is a seemingly aggressive behavior towards each other; lip-locking, tail-slapping, quivering. One odd thing is that they will open their mouths in huge "yawns" in unison. If one of the fish is overly aggressive, and the aggression is obviously one-sided, then separate them. Although this mating play is rough, it does not involve one fish dominating the other.
According to Dr. Axelrod, the ideal mating temperature is 78 degrees; other sources claim 83. The important thing is to keep the temperature, whatever it is, constant. Your tank preparations should include 3 important things: Temperature, placing a flat rock on the floor of the aquarium, and planning what to do with the fry. During their play, the Oscars, using their mouths, will clear the gravel off of the flat rock, and then the female will lay her eggs. The eggs are laid in neat, linear rows in a circular pattern on the flat surface. No egg will be laid on top of a previously laid egg. Not all the eggs are laid at once; the female will take breathers, at which time the male moves in and fertilizes the eggs.
After the eggs are laid, both parents-to-be will hover over them, fanning the eggs with their fins. Fanning keeps water moving over the eggs, keeping them oxygenated and keeping sediment from settling on them. Occasionally they mouth the eggs, which keeps them clean and turns up bad eggs, which are then destroyed.
If a constant tank temperature is maintained, the eggs should hatch in about 36 hours. At first, the fry cannot swim, but they squirm "en masse" on the rock, living off the egg sac, for about 4 days. The parents constantly attend to their young at this time. After the sac is used up, the fry become "free-darting" (I hesitate to call it "swimming" yet).
Feeding these fry is easier than other breeds, because of the baby Oscar's relatively large size. A good and simple plan is to crush regular processed flake food in your fingers, and just drop it in. Turn off filtration during fry feeding time to make it easier for them to find their bits of food.
The size of an Oscar spawn can be anywhere from 300 to over 1000 fry. In the wild, only 10% of a spawn can expect to live past one inch in length.
How the parents act towards their fry is as individual as each Oscar's personality. Some have spawn after spawn and never bother their fry; others eat their young as soon as they hit "darting" stage. Many will eat their fry the first couple of spawns, then learn to leave subsequent spawns alone. To be on the safe side, separating the fry from their parents is probably a good idea. Oscars can be very good parents; any other fish that dares to threaten an Oscar spawn can expect a good thrashing!

Keep us updated, and once again, welcome to the forums!

--Mark:cool:

I have a female red oscar. Her head is rounder than my male tigers.. Kinda like a baloga (whale) head. Montie's (male) head is pointer. Of course I only asume that they are male and female...
I hope they are!!!

claire

thanks for the info guys u been a lot of help....

so how long till the eggs aer hatched???

About 36 hours,then they are wigglers then 4 days later they are free swimming fry.

i was reading on a nother site and i read they can spawn under 2 inches

Oscars reach sexual maturity between six and eight months old. Now I guess if it was kept in a small tank, and stunted there might be a "REMOTE" chance they could mate at that "SIZE" however I wouldn't belive it unless I saw it with my own two eyes.