What a nice gift of fish. How warm is your tank now?

Oscars are the Amazon equivalent of a small mouth bass. Mid-sized predator.
I was shocked to see that they can grow to 18" in the Amazon. That is an
actual measurement! Innes says they grow to 10-12". I have one in a tank
in my office that is now 14".

They will eat what they can get. My office fish eats catfish food as do the
goldies and koi. She has grown from 2" to 14" and lasted 8 years thus far.
Feed them pellets. We don't bother with chiclid food (costly!).

They can handle 60 degrees. The AMazon gets that cold. They will not
handle a Mass wintr.

Enjoy and then catch. Your oscars are likely to thrive in the pond this
summer.

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"PETEFT15" wrote in message
...
Hello,

We have a backyard pond (oval, approx. 12' x 7', about 2 1/2' deep) which
we
had previously had some goldfish in, leftover from the prevoious owner.
Well,
long story short, we have cleaned out the pond, put in a new liner,
re-filled
the pond, and set up the filter/waterfall. We also bought a few plants
which
are now in there. Well, today, someone (I don't really know them...they
posted
an e-mail at work) came by to drop off some fish they needed to get rid
of. I
am now the proud owner of 2 large goldfish, 2 koi, and 2 oscars. I know
how to
care for the goldfish, and I think the koi are pretty similar. They are
all
too big for the Oscar's to be a problem. I don't know anything about the
oscars! My understanding is that they are generally warm water fish, but
I
know our pond isn't that warm. (We are in Massachusetts if that helps). I
can
see that they took a bit longer (an hour or so) than the others to feel
comfortable in their new home. My question is this. Do I feed them the
same
food as the other fish? We have some floating food sticks. Also, can we
keep
them out in the pond come winter? We had most of our goldfish survive
when we
did this (we have a de-icer). Anything else I need to know to give these
guys
a good life?

Thanks!
Erin