Aggressive Red Tiger Oscar

Question
I have a Red Tiger Oscar who is about a year old (I think)and is about 6 inches in length.
He has always been very personable and loves attention often changing colour when I get home from work and swimming excitedly at the front of the tank.
Recently he has been puffing out his gills, going stiff and twitching his tail making the "eye" spot on his tail very prominent, at feeding time he has also been jumping up for food and the other day actually bit me.
During a partial water change I dropped the algae scrubber into his tank and when I (gingerly) put my hand in to fish it out he actually swam straight at my hand and bit me again - suffice to say I have learnt my lesson and will not be putting my hand in his tank any time soon.
The thing is his behavior seems to have changed almost over night and this morning noticed that during the night he had (somehow) prized the apple snails in his tank out of their shells and treated himself to an escargot midnight snack.
My partner keeps saying that he is probably just going through some kind of Oscar "puberty" but I'm concerned that it may be symptomatic of something else.
Any help or advise you could offer would be greatly appreciated.

Answer
Hi Rychard,
 He is maturing and is now thinking about breeding and that includes getting substantially more territorial.  As you discovered, he will bite, but hopefully you also discovered that it doesn't really hurt -- it more surprises you than anything.  Keep in mind that he regards the tank as his and he may feel the need to let you know that from time to time.

-- Ron
  rcoleman@cichlidresearch.com
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