Fwd: Re: White Worms

["Ed Pon" <edpon@hotmail.com>]

kirkcj wrote:
>Hello:
>	I am trying to sex my oscars.  I have heard that male oscars when 
>mature form a lump on their heads, distinguishing them from females.  
Is 
>this true?  How easy is it to breed oscars?  If anybody has any advice 
>please tell me.  Thank you.
>
>cj
>
This is about as far from dwarf cichlids as you can get.  Anyway--I got 
interested in breeding oscars a few years ago (but I lost interest 
before I did) and tried to sex some.  It's extremely difficult--the hump 
on the head doesn't show unless the fish are pretty old.  In some 
species of cichlids, the hump indicates dominance and not necessarily 
male vs. female.  You might read Loiselle's cichlid book and learn how 
to turn the fish over and "vent" (determine sex by looking at the shape 
of the vent) the fish.  I connected to compuserve and located all the 
articles I can find on breeding Oscars.  There seemed to be one 
commonality for all the breeding articles.  The water temperature was at 
85 degrees fahrenheit.  You might try increasing the daylight time to 
something like 14 hours a day also (works on angels).  Water changes 
seem to stimulate spawning in just about all cichlids.