Oscar Fish

A very intelligent fish that can recognize its owner, the heavily built Oscar is an all-time favorite among aquarium hobbyists. Originally imported from South America, most Oscars for sale are now tank-bred. A large aquarium of at least 70 gallons is required to house a pair of Oscars.

The Oscar fish has his own ideas on how to decorate what he considers his home (your aquarium!) he will grab any object including small rocks and plants (doesn't care whether they are natural or artificial) and spit them out of the tank if he doesn't like them -a deep sand bottom and few large rocks will save you a lot of headaches.- Oscars have hearty appetites and should only be kept with fish that are the same size or larger; smaller fish soon become a quick snack for the Oscar. Other South American cichlids and large catfish make good tankmates.

Occasionally the Oscar will pretend he's dying and will lay down on the bottom of the aquarium (don't worry oscars are excellent actors) he will wait for small fishes to get closer, those naďve enough to buy his tricks will not live long to tell their story; although some people recommend feeding them live goldfish and guppies I personally do not like the idea as you take a real chance of introducing diseases, instead you can feed them vegetarian cichlid pellet, peas, lettuce (this is important to prevent hith disease) blended beef heart, earthworms and shrimps.