"Beano" wrote in message
oups.com...
Ok, here goes. Short story is, you can keep it in there a little while
but really seriously consider buying a much bigger tank. I'll tell you
why:

I have had 3 oscars since I started fishkeeping. The first one lived
in my 20gal, but died after 6 months. It was 5cm when I bought it and
about 8cm long when it died. The 2nd one, lived for about the same
amount of time in the same tank, but grew even slower.

My 3rd one, which is my current living oscar, started off for the first
2 weeks in the old 20gal then I bought a 65gal (4 foot long) tank. He
was the smallest of all the oscars when I purchased him, but in only 3
months is already much bigger than the other two were at 6 months!

So my point is, their growth will be stunted if the tank is too small
and the water is not pristine. I'm quite sure my first two died
because I could not keep the maintenance of their tank up - Oscars are
messy messy eaters and they spit out a lot of what they eat through
their gills (you'll see when you watch them eat). So a lot ends up
rotting on the bottom of the tank. You'll find pretty quickly in a
30gal tank that the water will start to smell really bad and the
buildup of toxins in the water will be enough to affect the fish within
a few months.

I keep my 10in Oscar in a 60g tank, he lives with a large pleco and a small
(3 1/2in Jewel chiclid). The Jewel lives in a clay pot and he eats a good
bit of what the Oscar spills out of his gills. If it wasn't for him, my once
a week vacums wouldn't even be enough. I must tell you, it's very hard to
find a tank mate for an Oscar in a tank of that size.

Experts recommend that a single oscar needs at least a 55gal tank. If
you want two then you need an even bigger one. Any smaller and you
risk your fish suffering stunted growth, and development of diseases
such as Hole in the head (HITH) also known as head and lateral line
erosion (HLLE) - there's some pics of this on google.

You can occasionally find really cheap tanks on ebay. That's where I
got mine from! And I live in a 1 bedroom granny flat, it's small, but
I managed to fit the tank into my combined bathroom laundry...

Good luck, I recommend buying an oscar, they are the coolest fish, but
you'll only be able to house it in the 30 gal for maybe 2 months if
your lucky.