To Those of You Who Keep Oscars

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Originally Posted by JBallPython

Great advice guys, I agree. No need to regurge what you guys already said!:rockon:

-Jason

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Ahh the jokes I could insert here... :D

Thanks for your advice guys. I think two oscars would look perfect in the tank, and we have a great locally owned fish store here that I want to buy them from. So excited :D I will post pictures once the tank is setup. I'm planning on getting a canister filter to combat the waste, which has worked wonders with my 75 gallon.

Agreed, i had 2 Oscars in my 90 gal and they did fine... also had a peacock bass (chiclid) and a Jaguar guatpote (cant spell that one) We catch them in the canal behind my house... They are basically native to florida now. Only the Jaguar was aggressive at all.

If you like tanks you should try file snakes (already posted the pics in anither thread but heres some anyways) These guys are super cool and 90 gal is perfect for them!

http://www.nextworldexotics.com/images/tizank3.jpg

WOW. Definetly have not seen those before.

Check out the thread i just poseted on them... you may like them! (Its right below your thread titled File Snake)

I was successful in keeping 2 different pairs of oscars in 2 separate 75 gallon tanks. With the first pair, I had two pictus catfish and they all did just fine together. I wouldn't recommend a pleco in this set up though, because of the copius amounts of waste produced by the oscars alone.
And don't forget, just because it's been done, doesn't mean that the 2 oscars you will end up getting will get along for the rest of their lives. With Nicholas and Armand, there were 2 close calls where Nicholas had suddenly turned on Armand and beat the crud out of him.
You can also cut down on waste by getting them to eat a staple pelleted diet with occassional meaty treats and only feeding every other day.
I used to feed my oscars a super protein diet and believe me, I saw it back out the other end the next day!! :eek:
After switching them all to pellets, I barely ever saw oscar poo again after that. ;)

i have two oscars in my 77 gallon. they are being moved to my 135g when the stand gets made... but they've done just fine. i have a fluval 404 on the tank... do weekly water changes and they have MANY tank mates!

my giraffe catfish is in there with them, 2 texas cichlids, 2 sun catfish, a pleco, a 3" venustas and another cichlid (can't remember the name but the same size as the venustas).

is the tank heavily stocked... yup. do i do a lot of water changes... yup. are they all doing great with absolutely no disease at all... yup.

so can it be done... yup. can you do it and be lazy about water changes... nope. :P

i overstock most of my tanks though... i also over filter them to make sure the water is top quality as it's what they live in.

if i lived in a toilet... i would SO want someone to flush at LEAST once a week! :giggle:

oh and my oscars love each other. no problems at all between them. felix and brindi are their names... my little puppy dogs! (and very pouty when i do their water changes... they very very VERY much dislike water changes LOL)

Nippy thanks for the info, though I don't understand why I wouldn't put a Pleco in with them, in fact many of mine do a WONDEFFUL job of cleaning up waste and algae. I'm glad to see everyone has had such positive experiences keeping pairs. If the pair doesn't work out, it's not the end of the world. I had quite a bit of that happening when I had a silver-tipped shark and other fish kept mysteriously disappearing. :confused: :P

As far as water changes goes, I am definetly used to it. I do them at least with the 75 gallon each week to keep the Discus happy.

I think I'd like to have one tiger, one albino, a pleco, and one or two interesting bottom feeders -- perhaps a spiny cat, since they eat fish waste, and there was a really cool catfish like HUGE bottom feeder I saw at my lfs, I can't remember what it was called, but apparently they have the potential to grow to the size allowed, so many people keep them in ponds. They were black and light orange, and had a high dorsal fin. Anyone?? :confused:

i have never heard of any fish eating other fish poop. are you sure????

plecos and goldfish are the POOP KINGS of the fish world... so... if your tank is a little overstocked... as a 90 gallon would be with two oscars, i would consider not bothering with one. perhaps a bristlenose IF you have an algae problem but honestly, most plecos only eat algae when they are small and need to be fed algae pellets when they grow up (cause they get fat and lazy LOL)