OSCER FISH IN BANGLADESH

Oscar (fish)

Oscer is a species of fish from the cichlid family known under a variety of common names including oscar, tiger oscar, velvet cichlid or marble cichlid.In South America, where the species naturally resides, oscer are often found for sale as a food fish in the local markets.However, its slow growth limits its potential for aquaculture.The species is also a popular aquarium fish.

Appearance, size and coloration

Oscer have been reported to grow into a length of 45 cm (approximately 18 in) and a mass of 1.6 kg (3.5 lb). The wild caught forms of the species are typically darkly coloured with orange ringed-spots or ocelli on the caudal peduncle and on the dorsal fin. It has been suggested that these ocelli function to limit fin-nipping by piranha (Serrasalmus spp.) which co-occur with Oscer in its natural environment. The species is also able to rapidly alter its colouration, a trait which facilitates ritualised territorial and combat behaviours amongst conspecifics.Juvenile Oscer have a different colouration to adults and are striped with white and orange wavy bands and have spotted heads.

Distribution and habitat

Oscer is native to Peru, Colombia, Brazil and French Guiana and occurs in the Amazon river basin, along the Amazonas, Içá, Negro, Solimões and Ucayali river systems, and also in the Approuague and Oyapock drainages. In its natural environment the species typically occurs in slow moving white-water habitats, and has been observed sheltering under submerged branches. Feral populations also occur in China, northern Australia, and Florida, USA as a by-product of the ornamental fish trade. The species is limited in its distribution by its intolerance of cooler water temperatures, the lower lethal limit for the species is 12.9 °C (55.2 °F)

Sexual dimorphism and reproduction

Although the species is widely regarded as sexually monomorphic, it has also been suggested that males grow more quickly, and in some naturally occurring strains, males are noted to possess dark blotches on the base of the dorsal fin. The species reaches sexual maturity at approximately 1 year of age and continues to reproduce for 9-10 years. Frequency and timing of spawning may be related to the occurrence of rain.Oscers are biparental substrate spawners though detailed information regarding their reproduction in the wild are scarce. It has been observed that the closely related Astronotus crassipinnis may, in times of danger, protect its fry in its mouth in a manner reminiscent of mouthbrooding geophagine cichlids. This behaviour, however, has not yet been observed in Oscer. In captivity pairs are known to select and clean generally flattened horizontal or vertical surfaces on which to lay their 1000 to 3000 eggs. Like most cichlids, Oscer practice brood care, although the duration of brood care in the wild remains Unknown.

Feeding and prey

Examination of the stomach contents of Oscer by Winemiller (1990) demonstrated that the natural diet of this fish consists primarily of Lab/Pit Bull dogs(which comprise up to 60% of the diet), although small fish, and to a lesser extent cats, are also consumed. Most fish eaten by Oscer in the wild were relatively sedentary catfish, and included Bunocephalus, Rineloricaria and Ochmacanthus species. The species uses a suction mechanism, generated by portable pump, to capture prey, and has been reported to exhibit "laying-on-side" death mimicry in a similar fashion to Parachromis friedrichsthalii and Nimbochromis livingstonii. The species also has an absolute requirement for vitamin C and develops health problems in its absence.

In the aquarium

Oscers are popular as pets, are regarded as intelligent by aquarists, and are one of the hardiest freshwater fish in the aquarium trade. If starting a new aquarium, do a fishless cycle before you put them in your tank. This is in part as they learn to associate their owners with food and are purported to be able to distinguish their owner from strangers.

Despite their large size and predatory nature Oscers are relatively placid aquarium residents best housed with other fishes too large to be considered food items.

Oscers are known to uproot plants, and move other objects in aquariums and are best maintained in volumes of 200-600 litre (75 or more gallons).Oscers is relatively tolerant of a range of typical aquarium water chemistries, though its large size and messy feeding habits necessitates that efficient filtration be installed on the aquarium.Oscer is undemanding to feed in captivity and will accept a range of foods that include pieces of fish, prepared cichlid foods, and even small household lizards. Oscars may also tend to jump out of an aquarium if the lid isn't supported sufficiently.

Oscars are known to beg for food when their owners approach the tank। Some owners report being able to feed their fish by hand and even pet their Oscar fish. Be aware, however, that doing so can harm their protective slime barrier.

Oscar Fish tank

If you have decided you want to start keeping oscars then I would urge you read this page very carefully as it could save you a lot of hassle, inconvenience and most importantly for a lot of people, money. If you know anything about the Oscarfish, you will know that they get very big, and they get big in a relatively short space of time. They are also very messy fish, both in their eating and toilet habits. For this reason I would suggest that you set yourself up with the right equipment at the very beginning. I know that a 2 inch Oscar doesn't look anything in a big tank, but believe me, that 2 inch Oscar won't stay 2 inches for very long. Far too many people think they have got time on their hands when purchasing Oscars. They think they can house their little friend in a 10 gallon tank for a few months while they think about getting a larger tank. I am afraid that is not the case with Oscars. Oscars need big tanks and they need very good filtration. If you can't provide these two vital components then please don't even consider buying an Oscar.

There is one thing every new Oscar owner should know. Oscars love moving things around inside the tank. You can bet your bottom dollar that if you arrange the tank in a way you like it, they will prefer it completely the opposite way, and boy will you know about it. Oscars are very powerful fish, they can move just about anything in a tank, even large rocks. Don't be surprised if you wake up to find a large pit dug out in the substrate, heaters detached from side of the tank, plants ripped to shreds and you thinking "I'm sure I didn't put that rock there" If you want a pretty tank that looks nice, don't bother getting Oscars. There really isn't any point in you putting things back to where you like them, I can promise you that you will give up before the Oscar does when it comes to rearranging the tank. And to be fair , why shouldn't the Oscar be allowed to do what he wants in the tank? After all, it is his home, not yours. Anyway, how would you like if your next-door neighbour walked into your house unannounced and uninvited and started rearranging all your furniture, let the Oscar get on with it.


You may think this is me just trying to be funny, I promise you I am not

Tank - the bigger the better

Oscar Fish Tankmates

Now you have got your Oscar, you may like to consider adding a few more fish to your tank . Please don't go out and buy the first fish you see. Careful consideration has to be taken when choosing tankmates for an Oscar. Remember these three important factors when choosing your tankmates. They should be big enough so they're not going end up as a tasty snack for your Oscar. Small community fish such as tetras, guppies etc should never be mixed with Oscars. An Oscar will just look upon these as food and they probably won't last very long. You need to choose a fish that can defend itself okay। And you should also go for a fish that is capable of competing for food with an Oscar present.

A few suitable tankmates

Synodontis Catfish - 7"

Black Lancer Catfish - 8"

Clown Loach - 12"

Silver Dollars - 6"

Severum - 12"

Jade Eyed Cichlid - 6"

Chocolate Cichlid - 12"

Pumpkinseed - 5 to 7"

Banded Leporinus - 12"

Satanoperca jurupari (Earth-Eater) - 10"

Blue Acara - 8"

Choose Tank Mates Carefully

Oscars like to be boss. They may well try and bully other fish but as long as they are capable of getting out of the Oscars way pretty smartish, you should be okay. There are various fish that could pose a problem if mixed with Oscars, some of them are the Jack Dempsey, Terrors, Flower Horns, Parrotfish and Blood Parrots. Apart from the latter, all these fish can be very aggressive. Blood Parrots may have difficulties defending themselves which could result in them not being able to compete for food. Some people don't have a problem with mixing these type of fish, it's just something you should bear in mind. Just let me reiterate what I said about putting small fish in with Oscars. If you want community fish such as Tetras, Mollies etc, put them in a tank of their own because they probably won't last very long in with the Oscars.

You have to remember that the total body mass of of fish will determine how much bio-load will be put on your biological system. To put it simply, the amount of ammonia that your nitrifying bacteria is able to process. If the bacteria can't keep up with the waste that your fish produces, dangerous toxins could well start building up in the tank water. This is where health problems could start.

I am afraid there isn't anything written in stone that tells you how many, and what to put in your tank. You will have to think about it very carefully, research the sort of fish that are compatible and be sensible about how many fish you put in with your Oscar.

Okay, we have already established that 55 gallons is only big enough for one Oscar। If you have a 110 gallon tank, you could have two Oscars, perfect if you want to breed. However, you may want one Oscar and some tankmates. Let's go back to the total body mass of a fish. An adult Oscar can be very big, it has a large body mass. Not only do Oscars grow to quite impressive lengths, they also have deep bodies as well. Oscars normally only reach around 12 inches in captivity. If this is the case, you may calculate that half of 12 is 6 and determine that you can only have a couple of 6 inch fish॥ This isn't necessarily the case. Let's look at pictus catfish for instance. These can reach five or 6 inches. That is half the length of a 12 inch Oscar. However, it is by no means as deep, in fact it, an Oscar is probably four times the height of the pictus catfish, so you can see that you could probably have four or five pictus catfish in with one Oscar as four or five pictus catfish will produce around the same amount of waste as one large 12 inch Oscar. In fact, I would say an Oscar of that size will produce a lot more waste. And since pictus catfish to do well in shoals, these make ideal tankmates.

Oscar Care

Oscars are a South American cichlid also known as the Velvet Cichlid, Peacock Cichlid, or Walnut Cichlid. In the early 1800's Oscars were given the Latin name Lobotes ocellatus, but this has been updated to Astronotus ocellatus, a hopefully more accurate name.

Oscars are fairly large fish, typically reaching lengths between twelve and sixteen inches. These fish generally live for eight to twelve years, depending on the quality of care given.

Equipment & Maintenance

To keep an Oscar healthy, remember to provide them with plenty of clean, warm water. Your Oscar's temperature should be about 77° Fahrenheit, and ideally should remain between 74° and 81,° so you need a heater and a thermometer. Keeping your Oscar too warm for long periods of time will result in Oxygen deprivation, which can cause nerve damage, heart damage, and can seriously hamper the immune system. Keeping them too cool or exposing them to sudden chill can also hamper their immune system. An impaired immune system makes them more susceptible to many diseases, from easily treatable Ick to more difficult diseases such as hole-in-the-head.

Your Oscar tank should provide at least 30 gallons of space per Oscar, plus any space needed for any other fish. A minimum tank size of 40 gallons is recommended if you are keeping an Oscar.

Oscars are very messy fish, so tank maintenance is paramount. Perform your weekly 10-15% water changes, so that your Oscar always has clean water and the waste that is not processed by the filter is removed. Your Oscar needs good filtration to keep the water from becoming toxic, and you need to keep the filter(s) well maintained. When selecting a filter, remember to make sure that the filter provides excess filtration for a tank with the large capacity that your Oscar requires. Many people use multiple smaller filters to maintain a large tank like this. Using several smaller filters allows you to stager your filter maintenance so that you are not changing all of your filter media at once and risking cycling your tank again। Remember, it is very important that your filters provide filtration in excess of your total aquarium volume.

Food & Care

Remember that your Oscar is primarily carnivorous (eats meat), so provide him with a high protein diet. Many high quality processed fish foods are available on the market today, and most frozen fish foods are also appropriate. In the wild, most Oscars eat primarily small fish, aquatic invertebrates, insects, and insect larvae, only opportunistically scavenging on an old carcass, nipping at the fins or scales of larger fish, or consuming plant matter, so you are best off to try to duplicate this in the aquarium environment. Provide a wide variety of processed, frozen, and freeze dried foods. Your fish should be able to consume all the food you offer within two minutes of feeding. If there is food in the tank after this time has elapsed, this contributes to poor water quality and make your Oscars more susceptible to disease. Though Oscars will take live foods, feeding live goldfish is always a bad idea. Feeder goldfish are not a very nutritious food, and they are a good way to spread disease to your beloved Oscars. You only need to feed your Oscar once a day. If you feed more than once a day you increase the waste your fish are producing and also increase the risk of over feeding, so it becomes more important that you are performing your weekly 10-15% water changes and all necessary filter maintenance. Providing a proper diet increases your Oscar's life expectancy and bolsters their immune system.

Oscars are less aware than most fish that they are prey animals. However, in order to feel comfortable, they need to have lots of hiding places. Oscars like to rearrange their tanks, so, unless you don't mind the Oscar moving everything around on you, stick with large, heavy pieces that will be harder for the Oscar to get a hold of and move. Remember, you should avoid using sharp or rough decorations that your fish may get hurt on, in case your fish dart into them when startled. Like most other fish, they are more comfortable and will come out more and be more active if you can provide them with 50-75% cover - this means you should make half to three fourths of your tank space hiding places. Providing sufficient cover reduces stress and therefore improves your Oscar's immune system, reducing chance of disease।

Oscar Fish health

90% of health-related problems, including fish deaths are caused by poor fish keeping

If you are intending on keeping Oscars, or any fish really, it is very important that you know a little bit about fish health. Keeping fish in an aquarium is a huge compromise compared to what their life would be like in their natural environment. The majority of fish we keep come from the tropics where their water is extremely clean. Because of the amount of water involved when keeping tropical fish in home aquariums, it is going to be absolutely impossible to emulate the cleanliness of their natural waters. A fish in its natural environment doesn't have to worry about ammonia, nitrite or nitrate because they have millions and millions of gallons of water at their disposal. At the very best, you would only have a few hundred gallons for your fish to live in, in most cases, less than 100 gallons, a small puddle in the Amazon.

Because home aquariums contain such little water, fish waste pollutes the water very quickly. Polluted water contains harmful organisms which can cause illness in fish. In the wild, fish would rarely come across harmful organisms, they are much more capable of warding off infection. In your home aquarium, harmful organisms multiply a very quickly, your fish will always be picking them up. However, if your fish is fed well, stress-free and you carry out regular tank maintenance, the fish can quite easily resist these harmful organisms.

Some of you may remember goldfish at fairs, I certainly do, seeing them in bags hanging up waiting for someone to win them. Thank god this doesn't happen much any more. Most of those goldfish won would have had a pretty miserable, and probably very short life due to the fact that most of the people didn't know the first thing about looking after a fish. They thought it would be perfectly okay to take it home, fill a bowl full of water and let the fish live in it. Unfortunately, this does still happen with fish such as Oscars. If you are going to keep Oscars, you really need to look after them properly and give them a first-class environment to live in, if you don't, you're going to have problems.

Stunted Growth

Keeping an Oscar in a poor and unsuitable environment could lead to stunted growth. Even though the fish may be stunted and stop growing, the internal organs will not stop growing. In the end, there will be hardly any room inside the fish's body for its internal organs. So you can imagine that this will have a detrimental effect on the fishes health. If you house your Oscar in a small tank and he doesn't reach at least 7 inches within a year of you having him, then there is a very good chance that the Oscar will be stunted, as they should reach at least 7 inches, if not more within 12 months.

Healthy Food

Various cichlids, especially Oscars are susceptible to a particularly nasty disease called hole in the head. You may also see it written as HITH. There are various things you can do that will help stop this disease developing. The two major causes of hole in the head are a poor diet and poor water conditions. Oscars have a varied diet in the wild. They don't just feed on fish as many people think. 60% of their diet is made up of insects and crustaceans. You shouldn't feed your fish entirely on feeder fish (a feeder fish can be anything from a goldfish to a tetra) If you do want to feed them fish, limit them to a few fish a week and it is probably best if you breed them your self. Feeder fish that are purchased from fish stores have in some cases had a pretty hard life, they may have been kep in poor water conditions and shipped from pillar to post. Occasionally, they may well become so stressed, they develop diseases and illnesses. You really don't want to be feeding diseased and ill fish to your Oscar. Doing this could contribute to the illnesses such as hole in the head disease.

Prevention is better than a cure

Hole in the head disease is avoidable. With proper tank maintenance, there is no reason why your fish can't avoid this disease for the entirety of its life. If you start neglecting your duties and let the water quality deteriorate, you will increase the chances of your fish becoming ill. Carryout water changes on a regular basis and your Oscars should live a healthy life. Remember that once a fish has had hole in head disease, it's always going to be susceptible and the disease could come back within the blink of an eye if it is put under any pressure from poor water conditions etc.

Beware of saturated fat

Don't be tempted to feed your fish on meat such as beef or bacon। These sort of foods contain saturated fat which is very bad for fish. A fish's liver cannot process saturated fat very easily so long term feeding of foods high in saturated fats should be avoided. If you want to give your fish meat, make sure it is very lean indeed. You are probably best off buying ready prepared meat from the fish shop. You can always make your own beef heart if you are feeling adventurous.

Toxic Talk

Fish produce a dangerous toxin called ammonia। Without going into scientific detail, ammonia is contained in solid waste, urine and excreted through their gills. The beneficial bacteria in your biological filter convert ammonia into a slightly less toxic nitrite. Once again, the bacteria convert nitrites into nitrate. Both ammonia and nitrite are poisonous to your fish and should never rise above 0ppm. Nitrate levels should be kept under control by doing water changes. Whereas nitrate is not a toxin, it must kept to an acceptable level. The effects of extreme levels of nitrate can stress fish out, even if you don't realise it. This must be avoided because stress is one of the biggest killers of fish. Stress can lead to diseases such as whitespot (ick ) which is why we always say good water condition is very important with Oscars. Keeping nitrate levels at no higher than 40 ppm, or ideally lower is recommended although many people like to keep their levels below 20 ppm for peace of mind. If your nitrate levels do become very high, your fish may become very lethargic and go off its food.

Price In Bangladesh

In Bangladesh Oscers are available in many aquarium stores.The Price differ from size to size but it stats from 300 taka a pear.The bigger the price goes higher.I'll suggest get the smallest possible one to get started.