big inteligent fish tank

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steenmillinder

Jack Dempsey
MFK Member
Oct 25, 2012
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hi :D ...

Im thinking about a new kind of tank for me(as the title suggests). I have a tanga tropheus tank, and have i bit(a ridiculous amount!!) of saltwater exp.(6+ poot predator tank reef tank), and two new things have happend in my life. First i by accident got an oscar chlid and a new girlfriend that LIKES a TANK!!!(its gotta be to good to be true), that WOULDENT mind a large tank!!!

I dont even want to start writing 'stories' about my oscars elaborate begging behavioures, and how we have to trick the other fish to asume feeding in the wrong corner of the tank while oscar follows the other hand to be hand fed in peace in the other corner.

So I'm thinking a 6 foot 1120l tank either marine or fresh.. marine would be a bamboo shark, ray, mouray, coral hand, trigger, tang, wrasse - tank(basically my old tank), or if fresh i have to versions, and hopefully needless to say, build around a breeding pair of oscars.

The controversy I'm to spill here... first the fish need to be able to thrive, then me! but im NOT ristricting my self to a part of the world as long the animals dont mind(i have a mbuna/tropheus comunity tank, all being out smarted by my oscar every feeding, oscar being there is temporary, though he's totally chill about being the boss of the tank).

So My first thought(still in africas rift) i thought about large mouthbrooders with a O pair, in a 6 feet tank, with a BIG cave in one corner, og 2 - 3 fairly big but smaller caves along the back, for the mouthbrooders to be able to mate in case the O's have an active nest in the big cave, they'd also be out of sight and hopfully mind. The mouthbrooders would be big malawi predator haplochormies, aristochromis, tyranocromis, nimbo's, compressers and so on, i kinda find it a possible scenario(get to keep O's and stil have some africa left) for the fish' well being.

Then all of this got me reeding about inteligence in cichlids, and i stumbled upon dovii and flowerhorns and O's being mentioned alot, would the dovii live with an oscar and purhaps FH(or one of the more natural forms, and wich i so?)?. I kinda dont like the idea of keeping a monogous cichlid single or am i wrong here? maybe one of the cichlids(dowii?) be a single male? Another thing, i have a love for freaks and add balls, kept bikir ones, like that one, im not into arrows, but something eel like, snakehead? how about a motoro way? sturgeon? wolf? some nice catfish? some kind of pike? serpentine snapper turtle? all the monster potential!!! i need a bigger tank! piranhas!!

i need a tank-basment...

So what do you guys think about the to fresh water suggestions?
 
a six foot saltwater tank is in no way able to handle what you want for it.

For your african idea, it most likely won't work well. 2-3 caves aren't enough for what you want in the africans. Smaller africans will work, but not the larger ones. And the oscars will probably kill the africans.

A dovii cannot live with an oscar. An oscar and FH is doable. For the stingray, it depends on the width, no sturgeons period, for wolves it depends on the species.
 
the saltwater is what i have most experience with, and if I go for marine Ill make sure i only put in what the system can handle...

the african version i wouldent go for the smaller ones, if of the smaller ones it would be crabro and trawavasae mbuna, in my experience the bigger haps require less cave space and lot less terratorial when not breeding...
Gotcha on the dovii and sturgeon, i kinda expected it, any alternative to a dowii for in a oscar/FH tank? jag, JD, yellow jacket take its place?

If id go for a motoro id elevate all decore on pillars to free all sandbottom for it(80x200cm) i had it that way in my marine setup for my ray. As for other fish in a oscar/FH, id say, motoro, snakehead and some cat are the non cichlid fish id most want(i would probably find other stuff to go there as well ;) )...
 
wait your tank is 6.6 feet by 1.3 feet? That's an odd size. You should ask Zoodiver about the saltwater, but I'd like to know how long your saltwater fish lived.

And if you have experience with these africans, then why are you asking? I wouldn't mix African cichlids with Central/South american cichlids.

I do believe taht a oscar/FH/jack can work in your tank. A oscar/jag can work depending on the jag. the oscar/yellow jacket can work also.
Also depending on the snakehead, that community may be improbable. When you say catfish, be specific please. They range from 5 cm to 3 meters, and from peaceful herbivores to aggressive maneaters. Please say what species you want.
 
1200l standard european size 200x80x75cm and thats the one im gonna be getting..

lets forget the african and saltwater, saltwater i totally got and im not gonna mix oscars and malawi haps, dont know what the hell i was thinking, its almost a crime mixing trophs with mbunas, but scw that for now.

Cat, ur right there's i slight difference between keeping a red tail compared to an ancistrus cat, so i gotta read up on that one before i have anything concrete. For now im thinking a pleco and some kind of synodontis, i have synodontis petricola(bitesize).

non cichlids my preference list until i get smarter would be, ray(motoro?), snake head(read up on sneak heads), hydrocynus forskalii(i believe is the smallest of the ATF's?, so i any ATF), bikir.
 
something is broken with my computer, i getting to answering about the cichlid part, i have to break it up in two post coz the restore function dosent restore to the last auto-saved moment
 
coosing between yellow jacket and jag id probably go for the jag unless goin for the yellow jacket opens some other options on tankmates..

im kinda getting more hooked on the FH, im supposed to be against that kind of breeding thing :P ..

i could set the tank up with a big cave for each pair at opposite ends and make some kind of visual barrier in the middle so they dont see each other when in their caves.. u think theres room for 3 pairs of cichlids that size with the O/FH/JD combination?

keeping a single monogamous cichlid kinda doesent feel right, maybe im wrong(then again if the fish is used to live alone that would be cool with not having to hear her nag)...

please feel free to mention some other tankmate options/combinations for non cichlid and cichlid fish relevant for at tank that size with pair a of O's or other relevant reading, im not gonna commit to any animal before im sure I can handle caring for it..

may be a big gurami or a turtle, this freshwater big fish tank is very new to me(my biggest fish was a snowflake eel, a big oscar is way more massive in a bulky kinda way), also my time with american cichlids has been brief and rather swift..
 
dont know a lot about umbees and trimacs, but maybe they'd do good in a O tank and satisfy my fish needs :P ...

i think i have it narrowed down to two pairs of cichlid O's being one of them and a couple of odd balls that'd do fine with the rest..
I dont know what id go for, a pet-able fish like some of the flowerhorns or something more mean like a jag,, i like them big, but personality would win over size, id like some colour since the oscar is a bit more drap then some of the other americans. Even though i like size, a bit smaller or milder cichlid that would allow for some fun od ball to be throw'n in would win..

Last kinda odd ball i love, puffers, there's a large puffer in tanganyika... this large fish fresh water tank looks like the start of a new research project for me...
 
steenmillinder said:
coosing between yellow jacket and jag id probably go for the jag unless goin for the yellow jacket opens some other options on tankmates..

im kinda getting more hooked on the FH, im supposed to be against that kind of breeding thing :P ..

i could set the tank up with a big cave for each pair at opposite ends and make some kind of visual barrier in the middle so they dont see each other when in their caves.. u think theres room for 3 pairs of cichlids that size with the O/FH/JD combination?

keeping a single monogamous cichlid kinda doesent feel right, maybe im wrong(then again if the fish is used to live alone that would be cool with not having to hear her nag)...

please feel free to mention some other tankmate options/combinations for non cichlid and cichlid fish relevant for at tank that size with pair a of O's or other relevant reading, im not gonna commit to any animal before im sure I can handle caring for it..

may be a big gurami or a turtle, this freshwater big fish tank is very new to me(my biggest fish was a snowflake eel, a big oscar is way more massive in a bulky kinda way), also my time with american cichlids has been brief and rather swift..
Click to expand...
Yes yellow jackets open up more tankmate possibilities. The FH pair will kill every thing you mentioned.
steenmillinder said:
dont know a lot about umbees and trimacs, but maybe they'd do good in a O tank and satisfy my fish needs :P ...

i think i have it narrowed down to two pairs of cichlid O's being one of them and a couple of odd balls that'd do fine with the rest..
I dont know what id go for, a pet-able fish like some of the flowerhorns or something more mean like a jag,, i like them big, but personality would win over size, id like some colour since the oscar is a bit more drap then some of the other americans. Even though i like size, a bit smaller or milder cichlid that would allow for some fun od ball to be throw'n in would win..

Last kinda odd ball i love, puffers, there's a large puffer in tanganyika... this large fish fresh water tank looks like the start of a new research project for me...
Click to expand...
Umbees is a definite no, and trimacs are a maybe. A pair of oscars and some bichir species would be nice. Puffers kill all of their tankmates.
 
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