Saturday night, the water tests indicated that the assorted little bacteria were finally doing their thing and that the tank was cycled. I checked again Sunday with the same results. Yesterday afternoon I went to the store and brought home this little guy:
He (or she) is a juvenile tiger oscar. They're New World cichlids from South America. Right now, he's about 2.5" long. In a year or so, he should be full grown and will be 12-15 inches long and weigh 2-3 pounds. They're *big* fish! For now, though, he's a small fish in a very big tank.
They're also pretty smart, as fish go. They can recognize individual people and will 'play' with things in their tanks. They're notorious for rearranging any sort of decor or substrate in their aquariums and putting things where they want them, not where you want them to be.
Oscars are sexually monomorphic, meaning that there's no obvious difference in appearance between males and females. Really, the only way to know their gender is for someone to do a medical exam or to see a pair of them spawning and note which one is laying the eggs. Since this one is gonna live alone, I'll likely never know. Dunno why, but I'm just inclined to assume the fish is a boy.
Oh, and they tend to be very territorial and prefer living alone, so he's not gonna be unhappy not having any tankmates.
Anyway, that's my new boy!
I love that they move their decorations around XDDD
I'd love to have an albino tiger oscar one day, they're absolutely gorgeous, unfortunately I just don't have the room to house such a large fish at the moment xD
