Minimum Tank Size For An Oscar

[FreshwaterAfishianado]

So a good friend of mine has to sell her tank, she has a 9" Oscar and a 3.5" JD living in a 55 gallon, they're the only fish in the tank.
She asked me if I would be willing to buy it from her as she knows I already have tanks and she would feel more comfortable knowing they were being taken care of properly.Plus if she ever wanted to buy them back she would have the.option.
My question is this: is a standard 55 large enough for an adult Oscar long-term? I seem to find a lot of conflicting information online, some suggest a 40gal breeder (that just seems cruel to me) where some say 55-75 is fine, and yet others suggest a minimum 125gal, which would be great but surely not the minimum?
Just wanted to know what I was getting myself into

 

[fluttermoth]

First of all, you can forget about volume when you're talking about big fish like oscars and JDs.

Tank size has to be calculated on the eventual size of the fish, so they have reasonable space to swim up and down and turn around.

In practice that means aimig for a tank that's 4x the length of the fish and 2x the width.

It did always used to be said that a 55g was the minimum size for an oscar, but it's just not big enough. I had our rescue oscar in a 4'x18"x18" for a while, and it was not big enough.

He's now in a 5'x2'x2', although I reckon he'd be okay in 4'x2'x2'; that would be my recommended minimum size. I know there are oscars that get bigger than foot, but not many do, IME (although that could be because they're all stunted, living in 55gs....

).

 

[Dreamer03]

While it is ok to have them in a 55gallon tank....i would highky recommend at least a 75gallon. I dont know about the JD thought. I have my two oscars in a 150 gallon. One is 9 inches and the other one 8 inches

 

[wrightt3]

Yeah, I would agree with 4x2x2ft

 

[FreshwaterAfishianado]

Alright thanks, I'm not sure what I'm going to do with the Oscar then. Its really not possible for me to go any bigger than the 55 where I live right now as I'm in a small upstairs apartment in an old building.