Decor

[chillidragon]

I have a couple of questions about one 5" oscar living in a 50g tank. The decor currently includes gravel (about 1.5" deep all round) and one 8"x8" triangular rock slanted against the back for her/the plec to hide behind, and that is it, making it a fairly plain tank to look at, so here are the questions...

1) despite having two filters running, poop seems to wend its happy little way to the very bottom of the gravel rather than getting sucked up, so, would sand be better? Or less gravel? Or no gravel/sand at all? (An attractive tank would be nice, but the major priority is good water quality.)

2) The triangular rock is the only 'ornament' left since I gave up on plants (I'm sure you've read enough plant-murdering stories that you don't need to hear another) but the O is prone to the odd stupid moment and has scraped herself on it once. Is that just life or should I pick something less pointy? If so, any ideas?

So, any help, ideas, descriptions or pics of what you think would work or what you currently have in your tanks would be hugely appreciated. I do feel a bit like I'm depriving her of an interesting environment at the moment, and I don't think that me sitting at my computer three feet away really counts as an environmental stimulus either.

 

[oscarluvr]

for an oscar and pleco, just rocks or anything the o can't move, i have sand in mine

 

[fishbreeder12]

sand and a few large rocks and mabey some driftwood

 

[frasertheking]

id say bare bottom if you can helps you keep water quality up and keeps you cleaning the crap out the tank with gravel its more out if sight out of mind and can make water quality harder to maintain .

 

[pcfriedrich]

id say bare bottom if you can helps you keep water quality up and keeps you cleaning the crap out the tank with gravel its more out if sight out of mind and can make water quality harder to maintain .

I love bare bottoms! (on girls). gravel or sand is fine, just keep it clean. if you're too lazy to vacuum once or twice a week, go with larger stones rather than gravel.

 

[Marc280106]

Sand is no good for large cichlids, they are forever kicking it into the filter. Stick with the gavel and purchase a gravel vac.

Add a nice piece of driftwood as cover for the Pleco. Clay flower pots make handy caves and the Oscar will get some entertainment from pushing it around the tank.

 

[Militis]

I agree sand is not good idea



First of all oscars arent easy to please

Second of all doesnt have to be to fancy i just got a whole lot of rocks and a background of ruins here is a picture but yer he can't move them but later i will probly have to get rid of most of them but yer just rocks is good.

This is old photo tank is a bit differnt there is no more aqua helmet and tank is more filled up.

 

[Militis]

More updated shot

 

[chillidragon]

Thank you all of you for taking the time to help; I appreciate it. I've been using a gravel cleaner to press but to keep the poop at bay I've ended doing a mini-hoover every day (tell me if that's wrong; the amount siphoned out has usually been coming to about 16 litres, the tank is 180 litres (UK) which I'm guessing is about 50g (UK) but I don't want to be changing too much water, if that's even possible?) So what I've done over the past few days is firstly I took all the gravel out (which was fun). After this, doing the daily mini-hoover made me nearly weep with joy, it was so easy and took maybe 8 litres to get it tidy? Yesterday I then trotted off to the LFS and bought a large tangly piece of driftwood (roots?) which the plec has been loving all over ever since, but the wood floats :-( and the only way I can pin it down is with the big triangular rock, making it look like a construction zone. Unfortunately I also bought sand before reading the last two comments, but only one small 5kg bag so that there is just a 2mm-ish layer across the bottom. I've re-inspected and I'm hoping it's too low to get flicked into the filters but I'll have to keep an eye on it as the Juwel filter will be a nightmare to clean out if it does get in.

Anyway, thank you again, especially for being patient if I'm asking the stupidest questions, and if I'm doing something/anything (everything?) wrong please tell me.

 

[FSM]

Sand should be fine. Tie the driftwood to the rock with some fishing line until it is waterlogged.