To Those of You Who Keep Oscars

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Originally Posted by recycling goddess

i have never heard of any fish eating other fish poop. are you sure????

plecos and goldfish are the POOP KINGS of the fish world... so... if your tank is a little overstocked... as a 90 gallon would be with two oscars, i would consider not bothering with one. perhaps a bristlenose IF you have an algae problem but honestly, most plecos only eat algae when they are small and need to be fed algae pellets when they grow up (cause they get fat and lazy LOL)

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If a fish does not fully digest its food then I'm sure another fish may pick through the feces for "leftovers"...but the only fish I know of that truly eats fish waste would be the species of scats...and those are brackish fishes.

-Jason

i have a green scat in my brackish tank :D thanks for enlightening me!

Pulled from web: Abundant in calm waters of swamps and mangroves (Ref. 27188). Omnivorous, feeds mainly on organic wastes.

We have a pair of Oscars in our 125g tank. They were both subadults that we took in from our friend's pet store because, to put it bluntly, the world sees Oscars as throwaway fish. (sadly.) Any time I go into my friend's pet store, there are Definately three or four large Oscars in her 225g tank; people buy them as cute babies, then once they hit the 6 inch mark, people either get tired of them or start fearing them or hating them for eating their tankmates, and drop them off at the store.
I would seriously look into buying some unwanted, already-subadult-to-adult sized ones. Chances are, they were unwanted by someone else, so you would be giving them a good home.. now, I know we can't solve all the world's problems, and I would hold nothing against you if you want to buy juvies.. but I do have to say that their colors often fade as adults, so if you pass up some big ones in favor of bright red youngsters, you might just get one that dulls in the end.. subadults would help "fill" your tank nicely too, and make it look less like a tank full of "dead air."
Our 125 gallon tank underwent an evolution to get where it is now. We have 5 clawed frogs, one livingstoni cichlid, one redfin cich., and two plecos (dirtballs!) in this tank. No one bothers anyone else, but we originally had 4 Oscars; two were super-aggressive, so we put an ad into the paper and found local Oscar lovers who bought them.. our current two are pretty tame, but the Red does like to sit and wait for you to feed him, and he will jump out of the water at you for food! Secure heavy lids are a must on any Oscar tank.
Red still has some remainder of hole-in-head; he had it very badly when we got him last year, but he does not seem to suffer any from it. I wonder if it is something that never completely heals? White, our "snowcap", has a deformed mouth, presumably from a mouth fight before we got him.
We did lose our favorite Oscar, "EE." (stood for Evil Eye." We had gotten him for free from a petco b/c he was blind (had pop eye early in life) and sadly, he died last year from fungus; I tried like heck o save him, isolating him and treating but sadly he did not make it. These are seriously fish that you either love or hate; they have more character in one fin than (addmittedly) my goldfish or tropicals have in their entire bodies!

The tank: sorry it is at an angle in the pic.
http://i149.photobucket.com/albums/s.../oscartank.jpg

White:
http://i149.photobucket.com/albums/s...whitething.jpg
Red:
http://i149.photobucket.com/albums/s...s/redthing.jpg

I JUST realized you posted this.. what great looking Oscars! It's sad that they are "throw-away" fish to people, kind of like giant snakes - people only want them when they are small and cute, but when they're unprepared for the adult size, they think they can just pass it off on someone else. I wish I knew someplace locally that had sub-adult to adult Oscars. The fish store I'm planning on purchasing from is a place I trust. I've never had a fish die that came from them -- they quarantine for a month before selling, and I know they came from a respectable breeder.

Your albino is GORGEOUS! Was that one you got as a sub, or a juvie? It would be nice to have one that becomes bright as an adult, but it's not necessary for me to be happy with the results. I'm more just in love with the idea of two giant fish in my tank, a huge contrast to my other tanks which are all lots of mid-sized fish.

The white one, we got him when he was maybe, about 3 inches long. They are each about a foot now, and I don't think they're growing much more.. some do tend to get larger than others; we had one that topped out at around 15 inches! He was one of the ones that we sold..
They are swesome fish, and it seems as though you have the right attitude; seems like a lot of people have this crazy idea that if they keep them in small tanks, they won't grow.. that does not seem to be true with these guys. Mark's cousin had three, in a 30g tank, and they all topped 13 inches.
A pet store that quarantines; awesome!