I currently have a 90 gallon tall tank with an Oscar in it and no other fish. The Oscar is roughly 10 inches or so. I am currently in the process of redoing the tank for aesthetic purposes and will be adding some wood and rocks in the tank. My question is would I be able to place another fish or 2 into the tank once I have changed the tank around? Thank you all for your input.
Adding to Oscar tank
- Thread starter armyfish14
- Start date
Third the above two. The water volume of said tank for an oscar isn't really the issue but the dimensions of the tank sound like they might be. When you say tall I'm curious how long and deep it is for a fish as big as an O. My two cents would be let the O have the space for himself. If the dimensions are what I'm thinking for tall sounds like he might be lacking a bit of room as is.
So my tank specs are 48L x18w x23Tall all in inches. My oscar pretty much swims throughout the tank at mid range until.its time to eat or at the end of the night when the lights go off he may be seen closer to the bottom in the corner that he likes to be in.
That really doesn't seem too bad actually. They say swim across 3x before turn so ex: a 12" fish would swim 3 boody lengths 36 then turn so 48 being min but that's just one I've heard. 18 seems pretty good to turn. Ya, doesn't seem too bad actually. But I still think it'd be too cramped for any decent sized tankmate and anything smaller that wouldn't cramp the tank up would prob turn into lunch.
I feel you though. The itch to add tankmates is real. 
Maybe setup another 55 or 40 project tank to satiate your itch? Let us know whatever you decide to do. I'd be curious to know. 
The Oscar has claimed the 90 gallon so to put anything else in there would be risky.
Yeah I was looking to see if there was a way to put in at least another fish but I may just leave it the way it is and just change the decoration of the tank by adding in some stones and possible live plants that would be placed within the rock work. I'll start with that and see what happens. I would start another ta k but I just put together a saltwater FOWLR in a 55 gallon. Thanks for everyone's input.
> at least another fish
I think any quantity under 10 fishies of the same breed has no chance (I've tried).
If all the fishies are different breed, it doesn't work for some reason.
I have a quite mean texas, he loves murder, but I'm not sure where in the agresison level he stands against oscars.
Here's some bad advice, that worked for me:
1. Adding a bunch of feeder fish for esthetical purposes.
Before adding the convicts, Blue didn't consider guppies as food for some reason.
He tried one minnow fish out of curiosity and never ate another feeder.
Feeder fish can be pretty too. In my local fish store there were random "fancy" guppies in the feeder section and the fishstore person never was annoyed with my "give me all the pretty ones".
If you get 100-200, they won't have a problem maintaining population numbers. You might end up with a less fancy blend over time due to inbreeding and longuer fins meaning slower swim speed, but they're cheap to "spice up".
Multicolor blend of random guppie breeds can look good and it's cheap if it doesn't work.
If it does work and ur oscar doesn't consider small fish as fish, you can always switch to neons, raspboras or something "too small to notice" and "too fast to eat".
2. Adding a bunch of "same level of agression" and "mouth to body ratio" cichlids.
(Note: Unfortunatelly, the guppies could not sustain the population with the convicts in the tank. Option 1 and 2 are mutually exclusive.)
Convicts and Jewels worked for me. The white ones do a quite nice contrast with everything else in the tank. They're so white, they "shine".
Population control of convicts doesn't seem to be a problem since it's very rare any babies survive after water changes (they end up sucked by the hose and re-introduction to the tank is taken as a feeding.)
If you're going to get cychlids, it must be fast and agressive and a relatively decent size, while still being juvenile to be scared enough to not go "death match" with the main fish. For me, a swarm of 2 inch fishies worked. I had 0 losses (the bala started having regular fin trims tho). There was agression, but Blue could not focus on anybody for too long. He eventually gave up and started to try breed with them. With fish his size or bigger, he separates them, targets one, kills and repeats.
I've bought about 10+ convicts, 10ish jewels and 3 oblique zebra's. They're 4-5 inches now, but I've also got a couple that stayed 1.5-2 inches in size and are fine (they've paired with big fish tho).
However, convicts are a boring fish for most ppl, so I doubt u'd want those. I just like them, cuz I'm basic
3. Big fish that has nothing to do with cichlids genetically.
My texas does not seem to react to anything that's not a cichlid. So maybe u can get a "non-boring" fish that's not the same species and it will be fine.
By "not the same species" I mean, not in the Cichlidae family. My bala (rehomed) literally schooled with the texas and the texas gave 0 poops.
The rope fish just wants to wrap around everything and texas doesn't care aswell.
All that is bad advice and probably should not be done, but I consider it an improvement for Blue. He no longuer acts as a water dog and has his own life with the other cidhlids (guppies and other large fish didn't mean anything to him) because he's no longuer bored as hell. Food is also much more interesting and gets eaten in 30 seconds rather than "I'll never give you a schedule, woman!".
He's "entertained" with the other fishies taking his hole constantly and even tried to have a same sex marriage with a fat white convict, but it didn't last long since they both did it for the children they could not have together. There are less females than males in the tank and the females prefer their own breed.
PS: Don't blame me, if all your "attempts" get eaten or murdered. I've stated from the beginning that the advice is bad and "should not be done".
I think any quantity under 10 fishies of the same breed has no chance (I've tried).
If all the fishies are different breed, it doesn't work for some reason.
I have a quite mean texas, he loves murder, but I'm not sure where in the agresison level he stands against oscars.
Here's some bad advice, that worked for me:
1. Adding a bunch of feeder fish for esthetical purposes.
Before adding the convicts, Blue didn't consider guppies as food for some reason.
He tried one minnow fish out of curiosity and never ate another feeder.
Feeder fish can be pretty too. In my local fish store there were random "fancy" guppies in the feeder section and the fishstore person never was annoyed with my "give me all the pretty ones".
If you get 100-200, they won't have a problem maintaining population numbers. You might end up with a less fancy blend over time due to inbreeding and longuer fins meaning slower swim speed, but they're cheap to "spice up".
Multicolor blend of random guppie breeds can look good and it's cheap if it doesn't work.
If it does work and ur oscar doesn't consider small fish as fish, you can always switch to neons, raspboras or something "too small to notice" and "too fast to eat".
2. Adding a bunch of "same level of agression" and "mouth to body ratio" cichlids.
(Note: Unfortunatelly, the guppies could not sustain the population with the convicts in the tank. Option 1 and 2 are mutually exclusive.)
Convicts and Jewels worked for me. The white ones do a quite nice contrast with everything else in the tank. They're so white, they "shine".
Population control of convicts doesn't seem to be a problem since it's very rare any babies survive after water changes (they end up sucked by the hose and re-introduction to the tank is taken as a feeding.)
If you're going to get cychlids, it must be fast and agressive and a relatively decent size, while still being juvenile to be scared enough to not go "death match" with the main fish. For me, a swarm of 2 inch fishies worked. I had 0 losses (the bala started having regular fin trims tho). There was agression, but Blue could not focus on anybody for too long. He eventually gave up and started to try breed with them. With fish his size or bigger, he separates them, targets one, kills and repeats.
I've bought about 10+ convicts, 10ish jewels and 3 oblique zebra's. They're 4-5 inches now, but I've also got a couple that stayed 1.5-2 inches in size and are fine (they've paired with big fish tho).
However, convicts are a boring fish for most ppl, so I doubt u'd want those. I just like them, cuz I'm basic
3. Big fish that has nothing to do with cichlids genetically.
My texas does not seem to react to anything that's not a cichlid. So maybe u can get a "non-boring" fish that's not the same species and it will be fine.
By "not the same species" I mean, not in the Cichlidae family. My bala (rehomed) literally schooled with the texas and the texas gave 0 poops.
The rope fish just wants to wrap around everything and texas doesn't care aswell.
All that is bad advice and probably should not be done, but I consider it an improvement for Blue. He no longuer acts as a water dog and has his own life with the other cidhlids (guppies and other large fish didn't mean anything to him) because he's no longuer bored as hell. Food is also much more interesting and gets eaten in 30 seconds rather than "I'll never give you a schedule, woman!".
He's "entertained" with the other fishies taking his hole constantly and even tried to have a same sex marriage with a fat white convict, but it didn't last long since they both did it for the children they could not have together. There are less females than males in the tank and the females prefer their own breed.
PS: Don't blame me, if all your "attempts" get eaten or murdered. I've stated from the beginning that the advice is bad and "should not be done".