I have a large tank & great filteration, how many Oscars should I minimum have to create a breeding pair ?
May 14th, 2010
I plan to start with 4" baby Oscars, my plan is to have 4 at-least and then as the breeding pair forms, I will only keep them in the tank.
Any idea, how long it takes for Oscars to mature and form a breeding Pair ?
This is a tough one actually.
The problem being Oscars have no sexual dimorphism( can’t tell males from females). So your plan should work out..I would expect out of 4 fish you should get a male and female to bond within about a year. I would pose a couple of questions before you do this, hoping it will give you something to think about. you need at least a 100 gallon aquarium for a breeding pair of Oscars. Also minimally speaking you will need 4-6 baby raising tanks that are 30-55 gallons. Oscars can have hundreds of babies at a time…what are you going to do with them? I hope you realize that the feeding and maintenance of the fry will take out most of the profit from a small fishery. Unless you live in a very large Urban community you will probably have a hard time getting rid of the babies( remember that the fisheries in Florida raise most of these kinds of fish in ponds and are all ready set up to mail hundreds of thousands of fish regularly for pennies on the dollar for what you pay for them).
Just a few thoughts as I have seen this done before…getting the fish to breed is just the first of many problems.
To give you an example, every summer (late may) I set up a 2000 gallon garden pond. I put in 2 males and 6 females of one type of swordtail and one type of molly, guppy and platy. guess how many fish I can usually pull out in september. I usually get about 200O adult guppies, and 500 of each other livebearer( there growth rate is about 6 times what you can achieve in an aquarium). This is enough fish to keep the petstore stocked through christmas…At the same time frame you could probably produce 2000 oscars…..and we probably sell less than 20.
May 14th, 2010 at 9:11 pm
4 seems to be good enough and if you are lucky, you will surely have a pair up, and the answerer below, though he acts like a expert in fishes, does not have the slightest idea that its very difficult to distinguish male and female of oscars.
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May 14th, 2010 at 9:49 pm
if you geart two males and 4 females you should have baby fry swimming around in no time the more females the quicker the fish will mate and around 1 to 2 years will breed or maby 2 3 4 5 months
good luck with your fish
References :
owner of types of fish and have breed fish before and know lots of info
May 14th, 2010 at 10:28 pm
Only take on more than a pair of oscars if you can rehome the spare fish easily and safetly, when oscars pair bond, they usually try to eliminate other fish from a tank to ensure the survival or their young. Oscars depending on how they are kept and fed can potentially hit sexual maturity in about 4-5 months. After that time a pair may form anytime, usually very quickly.
References :
May 14th, 2010 at 10:44 pm
fishlove is right, 4 should be allright and there should be a good chance of having both male and female in those 4. Cameron does not have much idea about oscars it seems, he is speaking like hez talking about guppy fish.
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May 14th, 2010 at 11:04 pm
This is a tough one actually.
The problem being Oscars have no sexual dimorphism( can’t tell males from females). So your plan should work out..I would expect out of 4 fish you should get a male and female to bond within about a year. I would pose a couple of questions before you do this, hoping it will give you something to think about. you need at least a 100 gallon aquarium for a breeding pair of Oscars. Also minimally speaking you will need 4-6 baby raising tanks that are 30-55 gallons. Oscars can have hundreds of babies at a time…what are you going to do with them? I hope you realize that the feeding and maintenance of the fry will take out most of the profit from a small fishery. Unless you live in a very large Urban community you will probably have a hard time getting rid of the babies( remember that the fisheries in Florida raise most of these kinds of fish in ponds and are all ready set up to mail hundreds of thousands of fish regularly for pennies on the dollar for what you pay for them).
Just a few thoughts as I have seen this done before…getting the fish to breed is just the first of many problems.
To give you an example, every summer (late may) I set up a 2000 gallon garden pond. I put in 2 males and 6 females of one type of swordtail and one type of molly, guppy and platy. guess how many fish I can usually pull out in september. I usually get about 200O adult guppies, and 500 of each other livebearer( there growth rate is about 6 times what you can achieve in an aquarium). This is enough fish to keep the petstore stocked through christmas…At the same time frame you could probably produce 2000 oscars…..and we probably sell less than 20.
References :