oscars

could i pull off two oscars in 100gallons

Yeah thats plenty of room for two O's. Just install good filtration and perform regular large water changes as they can be prone to HITH disease.

Jay

cheers, i know some people say 55g is minimum for one but thats a very tight squeeze i'd prefare 75g

Depends how big they get when fully mature though 100 gallons will probably just about do it for 2 Oscars?! Just make sure you have some good filtration and do weekly water changes and you should be good! I personnally have a Large O n a BIG Ornate Bichir in a 100 gallon!!

Hi. Glad to see you putting you oscars in a suitable sized home. i have a 60 litre tank with two oscars that are about 5 months old they are way to big. i;m working on a bigger thank but probably wont be till end of the month. anyway seen as were on the subject of oscars, one of my oscars was sleeping i thnink cause i woke up about 2am and i turned on my light and he went mad swimming into the glass and i thought he was going to break it he was hitting it so hard and then he hit the glass and went belly up i thought he was dead and i said id leave him till the morning and remove him then. but in the morning he was swimming around not a bother on him, so by the looks of things he knocked himself out cold buy recovered by the morning is this normal for an oscar to knock its self out ???????? pleae reply

r2potat2
Maybe you scared the Oscar when the lights went on, he just stunned himself. I doubt he would have hit the glass like that in a proper size tank, probably stressed because of the tank size, then add the shock and well, bump. Check to make sure he's not dmage himself or the other Oscar.


Get a bigger tank asap. If you are in a bind I have a tank you could borrow,3'by1'by1' about 190l till you got a proper size. and a 405 and 150w heater.

In Dublin


Mark

Mark
Its very nice of you to offer the tank for loan. I heve been doing research on building my own tank but to buy glass and build is just as expensive as buying a tank from a shop.

So I looked up clearseal tanks and I was gonna get a Clearseal 42" X 15" X 10"its 145 litre for 140 euro. a jbl e700 cristal pro external filter for 60, Some sort of Lighing unit for i looked them up and seen a few for around 60, eheim air pump (supposed to be silent) and its only 20 euro, build my own stand which would cost about 50 euro and a hood for about twenty i have a 100w watt heater should cope shouldn it. that would het me a 4ft tank and everything needed to run it for 330.

You seem to know a lot more than me as I'm new to fishkeeping (about 4 months) and I only have oscars cause the guy i bought them from in the LFS said they would be fine in the 60 litre. I know now there not so do you think my planned set up would be suitable. please I'm open to advice so any help is greatly appericated
Thanks

P.S would you be interested in sellin you tank???

Hi there,

A 145ltr tank is still too small for an Oscar. You will want at least a 55g (240ltr) for a single specimen. I see you were misled when you purchased them with your tank, which is shameful but if you read up on the Oscar you will see that they are very quick growers and can attain 8-10 inches in their first year or so. Forking out for a bigger tank that will suit them when full grown will save you money and hassel in the (very near) future.

Jay

hi
thanks for the advice but i dont think il have the money for a tank that size or the space.

I find cichlid's amazing fish and I went through a lot of pictures and I would like a tank that can house
1 of each of the following
electric blue jack dempsey
electirc blue ram
double full red cockatoo
green terror
demasoni cichlid
electric yellow cichlid

roughtly what size tank will i need?
probably 1000 litres or something ha

If you cant house the Oscars then it would be best to move them on mate. As for your wish list, the Jack and the Terror are large and aggressive South American Cichlids. The Ram and the Cockatoo are Dwarf Cichlids and wont last if housed with the big ones. As for the Demasoni and the Electric Yellow, they are African Cichlids, also very aggressive and require different water than that which suits the South American fish. If you do go with the 145ltr tank, stick with the Dwarf Cichlids and you should do fine.

Jay

r2potat2 wrote:

hi
thanks for the advice but i dont think il have the money for a tank that size or the space.

I find cichlid's amazing fish and I went through a lot of pictures and I would like a tank that can house
1 of each of the following
electric blue jack dempsey
electirc blue ram
double full red cockatoo
green terror
demasoni cichlid
electric yellow cichlid

roughtly what size tank will i need?
probably 1000 litres or something ha

electric yellow cichlid??? got a latin name on that for us..my thinking is that you might be talking about labidochromis c.? also demasoni if so these fish are also not suitable.You are mixing african and south american all in the same tank(different water peramaters).More research methinks.

Regarding your O 'knocking itself out', that could quite easily happen with 2 O's in a 60 litre. When you turned the light on, it probably got scared from the sudden light (Oscars dont have eye lids), how would you feel if someone burst into your room in the middle of the night and lashed the lights on? You'd freak too!!

The tank is way to small mate, you'll have to bring them back and do the right thing here?! My O was like 10" or so after about a year and hes about 13-14" now. Have him just over 3 years! A 60 litre is probably 24" long and 2 Oscars after a year equals 16-20" of fish atleast?! The space will be a problem but the water quality will be a bigger problem for you?! Theres no way of keeping 60 litres of water with 2 Oscars in it healthy. You should be aiming for under the 40ppm of Nitrates!! O's are very sensitive towards high nitrates and can get HITH quite easy if left in water thats not at the required parameters?!

The 140 litre tank you mentioned wont do either!! Buy a juwel 300 or something that size and return one of the oscars. Buy a big filter like the fluval fx5 and you'll be sorted then!!!

Im assuming the electric yellow cichlid you mentioned is the 'Labidochromis caeruleus', as others have said, thats an african species and wont mix well with the southern american fish like the dempsey and green terror due to having opposite water requirements. Ive seen it done before and it worked if you keep the PH stable around the 7.5-7.6 mark though!

A 1,000 litre tank would most definately house them 6 fish but he wouldnt be keeping them in optimum conditions for breeding and the like?! I doubt he can afford a 1,000 lite tank anyway if he cant get a bigger tank for his 2 Oscars?!

hi thanks for the replies

Electric Yellow Cichlid - Labidochromis Caeruleus just google it

and i was on a site doing research and the site i was on they said all the fish i named were compatable
any sort of research i've done from the internet just seemes to be wrong not the first time members of this site has told me other wise so thanks for all you info and i can afford a bigger tank for the oscars just waiting to be paid, i get paid mothly,

Ok cool. Its always a good idea to cross reference the info you get from the web. In other words, go to various sites for the info you want on a particular species and you will get an idea of the things a particular species will require to thrive in an aquarium. Never take anything you read on the web as fact, and that goes for any info you may glean from here, as different folks have different ways and means of doing things. RESEARCH is the name of the game bro. Im glad to see you are determined to hold onto the Oscars, fair play to ya. They are more of a pet than most fish, like greedy aquatic dogs...I love em. My Tiger Oscar (Homer) was a minnow when I got him, a mere 3 inches and now, a year or so on, is a monster in the making. They have buckets of personality and are clever to boot. well worth the effort.

Jay