Scientific Name: Astronotus ocellatus

Oscars grow very fast to large sizes. Pink Tiger Oscars are not as aggressive as Red Oscars and Tiger Red Oscars. Make sure the Pink Tiger Oscars are getting their share of the food and not being made miserable by the other Oscars.

Appropriate Home
A small Oscar can live for a few weeks in 10 or 15 gallon aquarium, but very soon they will need a large aquarium with at least 50 gallons of water, an exterior power filter with a BIO-Wheel, a maximum of 1/4 inch of gravel, and an aquarium heater adjusted so the temperature of the water is between 78 and 82 degrees F. Click here for more information about warm water aquariums. Eventually one Oscar will need an even larger aquarium with at least 80 gallons of water. Oscars grow up best in a group with at least six Oscars. Sometime after they have grown to be 6" long, a male and a female may pair off and defend a territory from the other fish in the aquarium. At that time it is usually best to remove most of the other fish from the aquarium. Eventually the pair of Oscars will grow much bigger and require a much bigger aquarium.

Compatibility
If two Oscars are kept in the same aquarium, the stronger one will make life miserable for the weaker one. If three Oscars live together, the two weaker ones will divide the abuse of the strongest Oscar. The more Oscars that live together, the less aggressive they all become, and the less miserable the weaker Oscars are. It seems that six Oscars is about the smallest number of Oscars that can live together without the weakest Oscar being miserable, and twelve Oscars of about the same size will usually live together without the weakest being miserable.
 
We summarize these facts by saying, "Keep one Oscar or several Oscars but not a few Oscars." Eventually each Oscar will need about 80 gallons of water. So a group of six Oscars will eventually need about 500, and twelve Oscars will need an aquarium with about 1000 gallons of water. So if you won't be getting an aquarium with at least 500 gallons of water, you should plan to keep one Oscar. Think about this before you get an Oscar.
 
Click here to read more about several other groups of compatible fish.

Recommended Diet
When they are small, say less than 4 inches, Oscars should eat floating flake food for tropical fish. When Oscars grow bigger than 3 inches, they should be fed pellet food. Hikari makes a Cichlid pellet food, which is available in most stores that sell pet fish, and these pellets have special additives to enhance the coloration of Oscars. Click here for more about feeding fish.

Oscars are often fed feeder gold fish, but it is better to feed big Oscars pellet food. You could feed Black Worms to your Oscars, but it seems like a waste of money, and I don't think Black Worms help Oscars. Click here for more about Black Worms.

Size and Lifespan
Oscars rarely grow much bigger than 12" in aquariums, but I have seen Oscars that were 18" long. When I was very young I used to visit with a very skillful fish breeder who had a gigantic pair of Oscars that lived in an aquarium that contained more than 200 gallons of water. I remember one day I asked him about his Oscars. He told me they were more than 20-years old, and for most of that time they had spawned every few weeks. They had, of course, lived much longer and grown much bigger than most Oscars.