Question About Oscars

[DaveW860]

I am fairly new to the hobby and new to this site. I’m glad to be a member and this forum is awesome and very useful, I just have a question. I was given an Oscar a young one only 2-3 inches in size by a friend who was moving and needed to get rid of it. I have read a lot on the internet about them, but for about 1 day I have had him in a 10 gallon tank. I KNOW I KNOW he needs a bigger tank but I am afraid to add him to my 55 gallon tank without some advice. I know they kill like everything and uproot plants etc.

In my 55 Gallon Tank I have a few live plants along with 2 Red Tailed Sharks (Black with red tail and fins), 1 Clown Loach, 1 red sword tailed shark, 3 Small tiger barbs, 3 Gouramis, 1 albino rainbow shark, 1 Plecostomus, 1 black mollie

I only have 2 other tanks both ten gallons and I the Oscar cannot stay in that tank can I safely put him in with those fish or is he going to kill everything.

Please Help!!

Once again this is an awesome forum I’m glad I stumbled upon it. Thanks Guys

 

[Corleone]

It'll eat nearly all of the fish you list - the pleco and clown loach would be the only likely survivors, and as oscars grow quickly, it may end up outgrowing a small clown loach fast enough to eat it, too. Because of their size, a 75 gallon tank would be a better choice for an oscar.

If you want a big-ish cichlid that would work in the tank, a festivium (edit: I did say severum, they're a bit big yet and could eat some of your fish) might be a better choice. A fish store might let you trade him in for store credit if he's in good shape.

 

[Miss Wiggle]

yes unless you can get him a nice 75 gal tank to himself then you can't keep him i'm afraid.

 

[waterdrop]

Also, often overlooked is that an oscar, being a large fish to begin with and growing to great size, is a fish that potentially adds a big ammonia load via respiration and can push the ammonia load part of the stocking estimate up over what the filter/tank should have, perhaps despite what the fish-inch estimate might imply.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[DaveW860]

That sucks cus he is an awesome fish. I'm workin on getting a tank for him quick before its to late. If I don't aquire one soon then i will bring him in to the pet shop for a trade in. He is very cool though I wish I had got him before i had all those other fish in my tank. I had been reading about hith sydrome kinda sad. This oscar has some weird eyes I have looked at several pictures before and I havent seen any that have eyes like him.

 

[Miss Wiggle]

Yeah Oscars are a wonderful fish, but trust me you'll enjoy keeping them a whole lot more if you go in with a decent sized tailor made set up from the off, I've seen so many people struggle trying to make do with half measures to get things running cos they've fallen in love with the fish and invariably it ends in disaster. If you have the space then get yourself at least a 4'x2'x2' for him, preferably a 5/6 though. Get the biggest filter you can lay your hands on, then buy another one the same, and do some careful research on tankmates. That's the method for sucessful Oscar keeping.

Could be pop eye, hard to say without a pic.

 

[DaveW860]

Yes, I have read alot of your other posts on various things and you seem very knowledgeable I will look towards you for advise in the future, Even if I end up giving him to a pet shop I plan on keeping oscars just after having this one I love them but I will make sure to do it correctly so he is a happy fish

 

[Miss Wiggle]

thats the right approach to take, good luck with it all, let us know how you get on!

They are brilliant fish, we're hoping to move house in the next few years and for me one of the key factors will be have i got room for a 6'x2'x2' so I can have an Oscar again!!

 

[Davo86]

Hi Dave
I know this is off-topic but the general rule for the following sharks is to keep one per tank or 1 per 50USG if in a really big tank, at present you potentially have 4 and when they mature they will generally start killing each other if there is more than 1 in the tank.

2 RTB
albino rainbow
red sword tailed shark (is this a rainbow shark or something else?)

Also that clown loach really shouldn't be alone.

 

[DaveW860]

Nice that would be awesome.

Hey I got a question for you in my 55 gallon I mentioned in the first post in this topic I have all the fish listed what kind of filter do you recommend? I currently have a Aquaclear 110 Filter, Is that fine or would you recommend something else?

I also have seen some beautiful "rock filled tanks" with huge rocks and hideaways for the fish, I would love to do that but Im affraid my tank bottom would break from all the weight, what do people do?

 

[Miss Wiggle]

not familiar with that make/model of filter, I'm in the UK and we don't get all the same brands as you guys.

if you're not sure on filter suitability have a read through the link in my sig 'step by step guide to setting up an aquarium' won't all be relevant but there's a section there on how to work out if the filter's appropriate for the tank and bits on other pieces of equipment.

get a strong tank cabinet.

remmeber that 1 litre of water weighs 1 kilogram, water is not light so the rocks may not end up being significantly heavier.

 

[Davo86]

The filters fine, it is designed for tanks upto 150USG
As long as your using a aquarium cabinet as opposed to a bedside draw or table for example then you should be ok adding quite a weight of decor, however remember this will displace the water so the total volume will be lower than the 55G

 

[DaveW860]

thanks! Yeah I have a pretty nice tank cabinet, just kinda scary takin a big rock and puttin on top of glass haha. Tanks for helpin with the filter. I just was thinkin maybe a canister filter may be better. Thanks Guys

 

[waterdrop]

I'm glad that Davo commented that the Aquaclear 110 is fine for the 55g before I went off singing the glories of cannister filters, because I don't really know the size/capabilities of the 110 model and its probably fine. I assume its one of the Aquaclear HOB ones and as such, pretty flexible in the media you can put in. In general you will find that the cannisters have the largest amount of media volume for a given flow rate. So I believe this means that if we pictured a cannister and an HOB side by side, each having a water pump head such that the same amount of water flowed through them per hour, the cannister would nearly always have significantly more actual media that the water passes through and therefor for a given subset of media surface area in the cannister, the water is passing that bit of media more slowly and getting filtered better.

Does that make sense? If you've got a bigger box of media, you can think of it as allowing a great many more little streams of water to go through in parallel, as it were, than you would get from a smaller box of media, given the same overall water flow rate for the pump head.

But if your AC 110 is perfectly fine for your given stocking (there are no signs of you being underfiltered) then there is no need to go for bigger gear just for the gears sake. It can be easy to fall prey to the cool factor of bigger gear sometimes when in truth its not really needed unless the signs and measurements really suggest it.

~~waterdrop~~