Frointosa's are Asian and oscars are S. America, so that's hard alkaline water vs soft acidic water.


I've had a few oscars and yes, they do have character but not as much and any of the big S. America Pimilodas. I used to have a job running a tropical fish room in a shop, it was the red tailed cats, pervian cats and tiger shovelnoses that used to get all my attention! The red tails are lovely fish to keep, a bit messy but (and i know it sounds odd) quite affectionate. We had a tank with 8 baby pervians in and within a week i had all 8 of the hand feeding.

When i was living at my old man's i had at one point about 8 tanks on the go, mostly catfish. I had a 18" tiger shovelnose that used to hand feed (took lots of time to do this though as they are naturally very skittish). My fave of fish has always been Clarius cats tho, they're simple amazing, they close up their gills and are able to 'breathe' out of water due to some spiral thing in their stomachs. Me dad used to whinge about them escaping tho....