Talk:Oscar (fish)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Good article Oscar (fish) has been listed as one of the Natural sciences good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can delist it, or ask for a reassessment.
March 25, 2007 Good article nominee Listed
This article is part of WikiProject Fishes, an attempt to organise a detailed guide to all topics related to Fish taxa. To participate, you can edit the attached article, or contribute further at WikiProject Fishes. This project is an offshoot of the WikiProject Tree of Life
Good article GA This article has been rated as GA-class on the quality scale.
Mid This article has been rated as mid-importance on the importance scale.

This article is within the scope of the Aquarium Fishes WikiProject. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the project and see a list of open tasks. This project is an offshoot of the WikiProject Fishes and is associated with the Fish Portal.

Peaceful fish? The Oscar in our Koi pond has tried to bite me several times when I was unscrewing the drain filter to clean it. Fortunately I was wearing reef walkers when it bit at my foot. It didn't hurt, but scared the heck out of me the first time it happened. Now I go in the pond with a broom handle that I use to keep the Oscar away from me while I'm cleaning the filter. It will bite the broom handle several times before backing away and staying put.

That is the general opinion, I'd say. In my own experience, compared to other big cichlids they're so docile it's like they were constantly sedated - unless it's feeding time. OlofE 14:07, 30 Aug 2003 (UTC)

oscars are great fish they will get really really big so if you got diffrent fish that are really tiny that you want too keep i suggest that you get them in a diffrent tank. OlofE april 10, 2006

I'm going to suggest that a cleanup tag be added to this article. I've been reading about fish for a while on Wikipedia today and the article is short with an error in the second sentence (which I'm going to correct). I think the quality of the article could be much better. Also correcting "There is two species" to "There ARE two species" because I believe that is correct. Liontamarin 20:52, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

Clean up? I'm not sure it really needs one. This page should be a genus only (ie: for the genus Astronotus) page - the information on Astronotus ocellatus (the oscar) should probably go on it's own page (which already exists) and could indeed do with clean up. As A. crassipinnis isnt kept much by aquarists I cant see any reason to add "care" information in this section. Thoughts? MidgleyDJ 07:48, 28 May 2006 (UTC)


I've had a couple of Oscars jump out of their tanks. I found one a good 10 feet away from the tank, which told me that he flopped quite a ways. Unfortunately, it was at night and I didn't find him until the morning. I learned the hard way, always make sure, and double sure that the lid is on the Oscar tank. They will jump out. ° ≈ ≠ ≤ ≥ ± − × ÷ ← → · §Sandi207.69.139.160 04:00, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

I have raised several Oscars over the years, and with lots of success. Recently I had a small "red" jump out of its tank and die. What experience has been had with jumping, in regards to these fish? Unfortunately the cover on my tank had been removed for maintenance, and my belief they they were not particularly "jumpers", allowed me to experience this unguarded moment. Dr. Dan 15:05, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Removed from GA nominee list

This isn't an official GA review, because for this article to have been nominated correctly a GA nominee template should have been placed on this talk page. I removed this artice from the list rather than just adding the template to this page, because I don't think this article is ready for a GA nomination. It has the following problems:

  • The biggest problem is that this article needs a lead paragraph that complies with Wikipedia: Lead section. All the information that is in the current lead section should be worked into the body of the article in appropriate sections. There should be separate sections added for history (for the stuff about Agassiz), geographical distribution, and appearance (especially with all the info about the oscelli). The oscelli stuff proably merits a subsection of its own.
  • The sentence: "A. ocellatus have been reported to grow to a mean length of 45 cm (ca. 18 in) and a mass of 1.6 kg (3.5 lb)" does not match the source you cite. Mean is a type of average. According to that source 45 cm is close to a maximum length not an average length.
  • You really should either define sexual dimorphic/monomorphic and/or provide a link to the sexual dimorphism article. A significant percentage of likely readers of an article like this one won't be familiar with the terms.

There is a lot of good information in this article (with good sources cited) and with some work (especially on the lead section) you could probably get it up to GA standards pretty easily. Rusty Cashman 06:26, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Nice job addressing all of my comments so quickly. I suspect you will get to GA fairly quickly now.Rusty Cashman 18:53, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] GA Feedback

I think this meets GA standard. I think it could be improved in a few places:

  1. The "In the aquarium" section's first two paragraphs are (IMHO) too short to stand as independent paragraphs.
  2. In the "Selective breeding" section, a link should be added to Xanthochromism. The picture of the long-finned morph is totally appropriate, but this morph is not mentioned in the accompanying text. Also that long-finned oscar

looks to be amelanistic/leucistic, which should be mentioned, lest a reader think that the previously mentioned ability to change colour goes that far. Otherwise, GA Pete.Hurd 16:36, 26 March 2007 (UTC)