I am new to the fish game. I set up a 55 gallon about a month ago with great results. I had a 10 gallon with guppies, danios, a molly, an algae eater and albino cory catfish. I threw them in to cycle my new 55 gallon tank thinking they would all die. Only 4 died. The rest are still alive and happy for now. I purchased some small juvenille fish. 5 JDS, 1 EBJD, 1 oscar and a pictus catfish. I noticed some of the fish for cycling have vanished. I'm sure soon all the small cycling fish will be gone once my cichlids grow a little bigger. My oscar is awesome. Always chasing everything and doing tricks. I had my tank up and running without any issues yet. Three water changes so far. Is it possible I will be sucessful with this set up or is it possible overstocked? I have a aquaclear 110 on the tank with a few live plants, three caves and some fake plants.
cichlid aquarium
- Thread starter gm359
- Start date
yeah, just a bit overstocked regardless of what your filtration would be. Do yourself a favor, sell/get rid of the regular JDs, they will get violent and will not play nice with the rest. I'd hate to suggest you part with your oscar, perhaps you should start planning and saving up for a bigger tank in about a year, something around 100 gallons which can house your EBJD, oscar and cat. If you think this is as big as you wanna go, leave the oscar in the 55 and put the EBJD and the cat in the 29.
you are def overstocked, oscar needs AT LEAST a 75g, they get longer than 12in which is how wide a 55g is and so within a year he will not be able to easily turn around in that tank if he doesnt get stunted, it will also be a TON of work for you, having to do many water changes a week in order to keep the water in check with a super messy oscar in there, if your EBJD is doing well and growing then i would keep him (if you know its a male) and maybe a female dempsey that is smaller than him and have the pair in the tank, or keep a male regular dempsey and get 3-4more pictus so you have a little school roaming around the bottom, unfortunately 55g looks huge when its empty, but once you get full grown new world cichlids in it, it looks tiny because these guys grow large and usually do it rather quickly
id say your going to need traffic lights in that tank very soon my friend!
And lets hope those jack dempseys dont pair up when larger becouse then you"ll have a real problem in that size tank! And your lovely oscar will not be chaseing the jds eney more!
id say take out the oscar my friend!
And lets hope those jack dempseys dont pair up when larger becouse then you"ll have a real problem in that size tank! And your lovely oscar will not be chaseing the jds eney more!
id say take out the oscar my friend!