oscar jump

Question
Ron,

My roommate has a farely new oscar fish in a 6 gallon tank, and right next to the tank is a second 1 gallon tank for the little fish that he feeds it. The second tank is probably less than an inch away from the Oscar's tank, and this morning, the Oscar was in the tank next to it. He is accusing me of moving it, but i never touched it, and i insist that it jumped into the other tank. Is this a possibility, and if it is, how/why did it happen?

Answer
Hi Matt,
 If both tanks are uncovered, I'm amazed it took this oscar this long to make the jump!  The oscar can easily do that.  

 Oscars are very bright fish and he jumped to where the food is.  You can't really blame him for doing that.   

 He needs to put a cover on the oscar tank and he needs to move the other tank to a different spot or the oscar will keep trying and one day he will jump and miss the other tank and then he won't have the oscar any more.

 Also he might want to reconsider feeding his oscar with feeder fish. Feeder fish frequently carry all sorts of diseases and every week I get emails from people whose oscars are dead or dying from ick (a disease) contracted from eating feeder fish.  It's very sad and totally avoidable.

 

-- Ron
  rcoleman@cichlidresearch.com
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