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Hi all.....Jingles is a 8" tiger O. He is currently being a very bad boy! He has always been "the Man of the tank" but it seems now that he feels that no one should be in there but him. I know that Oscars are territorial.....however, he has never exhibited THIS particular behavior. He is in with an 7" Lutino, and a 4" synodontis USD cat, and a 7" Pleco. I'm wondering if they are going to spawn. He has been digging holes, huge holes, all over the tank. He has been moving the foliage (this too, I know is typical Oscar). He has managed to "move" all the other fish to one end of the tank, except Topaz, the Lutino. Now.......what are the chances that they are going to mate? They have been together since December. Jingles was 2.5" when I bought him for my husband for Christmas. (yes, he grew 6.5" in 5 months.) Topaz was 6" when Jingles came along. We have had her since October. He looks pretty banged up today, I'm assuming from doing his renovations. He continues to dig to the glass. Any help would be great.

Our tank is in pristine condition: all readings are perfect, Temp: 78.6. Any help with this would be great. Thanks.

Originally posted by Thorsmom
Hi all.....Jingles is a 8" tiger O. He is currently being a very bad boy! He has always been "the Man of the tank" but it seems now that he feels that no one should be in there but him. I know that Oscars are territorial.....however, he has never exhibited THIS particular behavior. He is in with an 7" Lutino, and a 4" synodontis USD cat, and a 7" Pleco. I'm wondering if they are going to spawn. He has been digging holes, huge holes, all over the tank. He has been moving the foliage (this too, I know is typical Oscar). He has managed to "move" all the other fish to one end of the tank, except Topaz, the Lutino. Now.......what are the chances that they are going to mate? They have been together since December. Jingles was 2.5" when I bought him for my husband for Christmas. (yes, he grew 6.5" in 5 months.) Topaz was 6" when Jingles came along. We have had her since October. He looks pretty banged up today, I'm assuming from doing his renovations. He continues to dig to the glass. Any help would be great.

Our tank is in pristine condition: all readings are perfect, Temp: 78.6. Any help with this would be great. Thanks.

Hard to say, might be mating -- might not be. You'll probably need to wait for it to happen to know whether it's happening! If it is mating going on, Jingles is trying to find/create a flat spot for egg laying. You may want to help by putting in a flat surface, like a brick, or similar that they can use. Remember that Oscar mating can get rough, but it doesn't involve domination; if Topaz and Jingles are a bit rough with each other, that's fine, and it might be mating play. But if Jingles starts to dominate, and Topaz starts to hide and show classic Oscar stress signs (lying on the gravel, not eating -- you know what it looks like!) then you might want to think about separating them. I read a couple of older books that suggest raising the temp to around 82 or 83 for mating Oscars, but most people I know don't do that, but it's something to think about.

--Mark:cool:

Hi Mark...Jingles and Topaz are being fine together, it's the other guys we are worried about. He has dominated the tank to the point of the other occupants are stuck in a corner. We took him out for the night, kind of "fish time out", we put him back in the morning. He was fine all day. He is still digging, so i did what you suggested and put a flat piece of slate in with him....he's mad at it right now.... I guess we will wait and see what they do, if anything. Thanks for the reply...Julie