oscar mess

[fishyscent]

oscar are messy and they are too much so I bought myself a pleco to eat the algae and the garbage the oscars make. (kill 2 birds with 1 stone) sorta thing, but the friggin plecos are makin more of a mess? wtf? so how to clean beside cleaning the tank every friggin day? is there a snail fish clam that can filter it and make it finer so the filter can pick it up?

any other solution to my messy tank?

 

[FrankSlapperinni]

How big is your tank?
how big is your oscar?

The thing for most oscars is to get a bare bottemed tank, It may be to late for that now but it helps out alot.
another thing you might want to get is a gravel vacume that doesn't need to be hooked up to a siphon, somthing like This
anyways, hope this helps

 

[fishyscent]

10 gal
oscar are bout 3inch maybe little smaller

err so basically a tank with no gravel is best? for oscar and other fish?

 

[freshmike]

For one, you are going to need at least a 55g for 2 oscars, no matter what. Your fish are basically poisoning themselves in their own fesces, not to mention the fact that there is so much stress on the biological filtration that there probably isn't even any anymore! You either need to get an exponentially bigger tank or take those oscars and pleco back to the store and trade them in on some neons (better suited for a 10 gallon tank.

 

[fishyscent]

o for real, err but there small fish.....onlike 2inch+....nutin big....and they seem fine in the tank....

 

[freshmike]

LOL! Oscars can get to be about 5 lbs! They grow huge man!
I had 2 of them and they outgrew a 33 in no time!

 

[Alien Anna]

o for real, err but there small fish.....onlike 2inch+....nutin big....and they seem fine in the tank....

So what do you imagine is going to happen to them? They will grow, you know, assuming they survive. Are you aware of the size of a fully grown oscar? Let alone the size of a fully grown pleco?

 

[freshmike]

Yeah like Anna said!

 

[cichlidmaster]

Here's my 0.02 worth.......................

Oscars........MINIMUM adult size 12" have personally had one that was 15"!! Minimum tank size.....55 gallon PER ADULT OSCAR!!!

If fed properly and proper water quality is maintained can add 1" or more of growth per month!!

Very messy fish indeed...even if fed pellet foods. Very prone to HITH (hole in the head) disease mainly due to poor water quality!!

Bare bottom tanks help, but IMO not recommended. Oscars love to dig and not providing them a shallow substrate could indeed hamper their natural instincts (this of course is JMO)!!

Bottom line..................

Your oscar, without receiving a proper size tank will be stunted, in ill health, probably get HITH and a secondary infection and die!!!

That cute little 2" fish will become a monster if proper care is given!! This cannot be done in the confines of a 10 gallon tank....not now....not ever!!!!

There are many threads here concerning oscars.....please take the time to find and read them thewn decide if it is in your oscars best interest to keep him/her in the tank you have.

CM

 

[Alien Anna]

In addition to what CM says (and CM is our local forum expert on oscars, you know), I'd like to point out that Common Plecos are also large fish - 2.5 feet is not an uncommon size (that's not including the tail, of course, as is the convention for measuring fish). Also, they don't eat oscar poop, whatever you seem to think. They eat some algae but also need protein in the form of flake or pellets.

A pleco definitely couldn't live in a tank without substrate - they need stuff to root around in, they need some bogwood and a cave to hide in.

A baby pleco could survive on its own in a 10 gal temporarily as a hospital tank, say, or quarantine but ultimately it needs a tank of at least 55 gallons if not more (the 2.5 ft monster I saw recently was in many thousand gallon lake tank in a public aquarium with pacus).

If the pleco isn't poisoned by the polluted tank, he'll probably be eaten by the oscars. Either way, I wouldn't put money on him living very long.