There is no definitive way
to sex your juvenile or adult Oscars and if anyone tries to tell you of a
way then it is nonsense. To sex oscars accurately you need to see the spawning
tubes which vary in males and females. When Oscars are ready to spwan the
tubes will appear in the anal area. They are milky in colour and extend down
around 8mm in the female and 5mm in the male. The females spawning tube is
the larger, being more rounded than the males which is thinner and more pointed
than the females. I have been lucky enough to work at home with 4 large tank
fulls of Oscars just feet from the computer that I worked on so have been
able to observe their actions for thousands of hours. Over the years I have
learned to sex them by watching the behaviour of the fish towards other fish.
If someone gave me an Oscar I would put it in the tank wih five or six other
Oscars and watch how it interacted with them. I could normally tell within
a day or so whether it was a male or female and then from that I would match
it up with another fish of the opposite sex ready to spawn. This was a knack
I learned and was nothing to do with the shape, size, markings or any other
feature that an Oscar may possess and was purely based upon the interaction
of the tank mates. For my mind the only way to obtain a pair is to buy 4-6
Oscars when juvenile and then grow them on to adulthood and let them pair
off. If you are offered a genuine pair of sexed Oscars make sure their is
some proof of that. Heve they spawned before were the eggs fertile. You will
need to know the truthful answers to these questions before you buy. And if
anyone one says to you I have a male I know its a male becuase its a big one
or its markings are this or that then you knwo that they cant possibley be
right.
