Send your Oscar story to nlloyd@bgnet.bgsu.edu if you want to your story on this page. This page should be used for educational purposes. Maybe new Oscar owners can avoid mistakes that others have made, and share the laughs with a funny story. For those who have contributed, thank you very much! Continue sending in those great stories!
When Oscar Attacks
I was sitting on the couch across the room from my tank where I have two
Oscars. I hear a little commotion, so I went to investigate to make sure
everything was okay. I guess when I leaned over to sneak a peak, I had cast a
shadow and the feisty one thought she saw food. I don't know, but the next
thing I knew this fish came flying at me- hitting me- me screaming and
flailing my arms about- and the fish now flopping wildly on the ground. I was
freaking out, trying to pick him up with my hands, which obviously wasn't
going to work- I frantically searched for the net (which happened to be in the
exact same place it's been for the past three years! geez.....). Meanwhile,
here comes the cat: Fortunately, my cat isn't too bright, so my fish was in no
danger of being dinner. At last, net in hand- the fish stopped flopping, and
she has safely returned to her home unharmed. Me, however, took a bit longer
to recover.
Submitted by: Vanessa
A Marriage Made in Heaven
We have two beautifully marked Tiger Oscars, Bud and Bertha, they are about
two years old and around 8" in length, and the live in a 75 gal. tank with
a
plecostomus "Sam," who is also about 8" long. About two months ago, they
had
a massive fight ripping each other apart taking tons of flesh with them. I
thought for a brief moment that I had two males. After doing more research
of
their fights I then knew they were a mating pair. I nearly lost Bertha
from
it, but after nursing her back to health for a couple of weeks and a few
permanent scars later, she in now fine. In fact she is soooo fine that She
and Bud decided make up and have a family. No worry of them both being
males
for sure now! They must be very comfortable or they would not have bred at
all. This is really great, since it is not too often that they will mate in
a
tank that sits in the livingroom of the house. They laid about 2-3 hundred
pink eggs on a clay pot on the 13th of March 1999 and they are fanning
them
oh so carefully. The eggs are due to hatch soon. I will have pictures of
them
on my web site and you can keep track of their progress along with me.
The
Lannan
Family of Davenport Iowa
Glitter and Light
Any time I open the lid of my aquarium my oscars think it's feeding time and
RUSH to the surface. I like to pet them a bit before I give them treats.
They seem to like it. They swim by my hand and follow me around. Sometimes
I put my hand up against the glass and the oscars will try to swim between
it and my hand. We go through this little ritual before they eat all the
time and they love it.
A while ago I had to go out somewhere so I did my nails up. I bought
this bizarre new glitter...full of big chunky sparkles and little tiny ones.
I forgot I had in on so in the evening I went to feed my oscars. My hand
was in the tank and they froze and just looked at it. I shook it a bit
trying to get their attention so they'd come to be petted. No reaction.
Finally the braver of the two crused up to my hand and took a good look. I
swear he seemed to be thinking (you know the look oscars get before they
rush to do something). He seemed fascinated (the lighting was on over the
aquarium so I was throwing off some serious light from my glittery nails!)
his eyes were moving like crazy. Suddenly he decided to go for it and went
about mouthing my finger nails. I would move my hand and he'd follow trying
to eat my fingers! I yanked my hand out when got a little to excited and
threw in their dinner.
Needless to say....I now wear clear nail polish only!!!!
submitted by Meghan
Two Cats and an Oscar (the Grouch)
As owners come and go for many oscars -these fish seem to be my favorite.
Nothing can compare to the sight of seeing not only one- but two house
cats who try to rule the roost-sitting on top of my 55-gallon tank (home of
oscar the grouch!) These two heathens thought they had a free lunch the
problem was they had to catch their own. So perched upon oscars roof
complete with paws in the water-waiting-for the inevitable swim-by ......
Oscar darted right up to their paws and bit them both so quick they didn't
know what happened! I never saw two cats move so fast in fright - you
could'nt help but fall off your chair. They bumped heads and fliped in
mid-air and fell off the tank! They now eye-ball the tank from a distance
wondering what was that!!!
submitted by joman
Lovable Oscar
Well we have had Ocar for about 2 years. We feed it feeder fish tell
it got to the size of a half dollar. We switched it slowly onto the
pellet food. She loves to splash water at us when we feed her, also she
loves love her treat of feeder fish and she will jump out of the water
for them. Just a few days ago we got a baby tiger oscar and we hope
that it will turn out the same way.
submitted by M. Heinle
The Oscar and the Cat
Back when I had my 55 gallon, I had a community tank (sharks, kuhlie loaches, fiddler crab) and three baby Oscars. Well, I was pretty ignorant of Oscars and when it was through with all the other fish, I ended up with a 55 gallon tank and one very aggressive Oscar. We also had a cat and one day, I saw the cat climb onto the chair next to the fish tank and look into it. She was doing her normal catty thing by selecting her appetizers for the coming meal, or so she thought. The Oscar was having none of that, and charged the side of the aquarium the cat was looking into, bumping it pretty hard (hard enough for me to hear across the room). It scared the poor cat so bad she jumped off and ran away, and never came near the tank again! I wish I had had a camera nearby so I could have taken the picture. It was priceless!
submitted by Craig C.
Aggressive Oscar
I once had an 8" Oscar by himself in a 25gal tank. It was my first fish and didn't know enough back then about tank size etc... Anyway, I originally had two Oscars in there from 1.5" each. As they started to grow the larger one eventually starved the other one to death by charging at it every time it tried to eat. I also had a Pleco in there which was considerably bigger but was also killed by repeatedly by bitten in the head until its skin came off and it died. Out of my own stupidity i also added an Arrowana to the tank which was quickly killed by getting its stomach bitten off. I come home to find the dead Arrowana on the gravel and my Oscar begging for more food. My Oscar eventually ended up by himself in the tank. He dug up all the plants, attacked my heater and the Aquaclear filter. The only thing that survived was a large rock in the tank. He grew to about 8" before he died of Hole-in-the-head disease. I think most of this aggression was due to the limited tank space and my own ignorance but he did seem like an overly aggressive fish to begin with. (This is my first time to have Oscars without help from anybody).
submitted by Un Bae Cho
The Net
My boyfriend and I were moving our Oscar from his house to my house (and into a 30 gallon tank). We decided our method of moving Oskie from his current tank into the moving container was by catching him in a big cup. We were using a little net to try to persaude the fish into the cup. Instead, Oskie charged the net and got stuck in it. At first, he fought, which didn't help matters. Then, he didn't do anything. I thought we were killing him. Finally, my boyfriend's mom helped us cut the net in order to get the fish out. He was absolutely fine.
submitted by Natala
2/18/99