Oscar Tankmates For A 5ft

[azzman]

Am picking up a 5 footer tomorrow, and am pretty keen on an oscar, how would maybe couple of balas and 3-4 clown loaches go with it? BN with hiding places? Or anything else that would work. Oscar will be small, 2-3 inch. Any suggestions welcome. Cheers.

 

[minxfishy]

Ah it may be small now, 6 months time, it will getting pretty big. I would say no to the balas, they are skittish and could be bothered by the Oscar, tinfoil barbs are good with them though, unsure on the clowns, but I think people do keep them with O's. BN plec could end up as food, so if you want a plec, better to go for a larger common plec.

 

[foley69]

I would go with silver dollars than tinfiol barbs they are a lot better looking and look top in a shoal of 4-6

 

[Davo86]

What are the other dimensions of the tank?

An Oscar will Very quickly outgrow clown loach so you may need to buy the largest clowns you can find and even them give them a few weeks in the tank to grow a little more before you add the O. If the Oscar outgrows them it will no doubt try to eat them

 

[shroob]

Depending on the width theres quite a few combo's for a 5ft tank. Oscars will go with clown loach, but as davo points out the growth rate difference may be a problem.

In the end it depends on the width of the tank before any solid stocking option can be suggested, though going on the assumption the tank is 18" or 24" wide other tank mates could be: silver dollars, clown loach, smaller plecs, apolo sharks to cichlid tankmates like severum, earth eaters, sajica, blue acara, green terror, fire mouth, convict, rainbow cichlid, salvini just for examples. Though the personality of individual fish will differ, and some options will be more risky than others (salvini, GT) and should be monitered carefully as the fish mature.

 

[azzman]

Thanks for the suggestions but ive decided to go for mbuna again, had some experiance with them and have semi got a handle on keeping them. Cheers.