Ideas For JD Tank

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Oscar's in the wild live in low PH soft water. If your water is hard and high PH I fear you will be chasing HLLE for some time.
This is why I changed my fish a couple years back since my water from the tap is PH of 7.8 and 150 to 250 PPM hardness.
I believe that our 50 to 70 years or so of tank breeding fish can't and won't change millions of years of evolution.


What are your water peramaters?
PH and hardness?
 
Oscar's in the wild live in low PH soft water. If your water is hard and high PH I fear you will be chasing HLLE for some time.
This is why I changed my fish a couple years back since my water from the tap is PH of 7.8 and 150 to 250 PPM hardness.
I believe that our 50 to 70 years or so of tank breeding fish can't and won't change millions of years of evolution.


What are your water peramaters?
PH and hardness?
Hello. I tested the water and it is:
Ammonia 0
Nitrite 0
Nitrate between 10 & 20
Hardness is over 8
 
Hi. Nice to see you also. hope you have been well. WOW!!! your tank is AMAZING!!!! I have tried driftwood but I don't like the tannins and the fuzzy stuff it gets. IM thinking about replacing the rock to the left with a bigger one and adding this big hair grass plant for him to hide behind if he wants. I LOVED it when I had the huge rocks in there but i thought with him getting bigger he would like more room. Thank for your help. I appreciate it.
Thank you!

I understand the fuzzy driftwood haha it does get fuzzy, most of my driftwood is fuzzy to some degree hah

Something I used when I had my goldfish was these plastic reptile plants that I draped downward into the tank, it floated a little out from the wall and my goldfish would hide behind the plants and the plants added to the upper levels of the tank.
 
Oscar's in the wild live in low PH soft water. If your water is hard and high PH I fear you will be chasing HLLE for some time.
This is why I changed my fish a couple years back since my water from the tap is PH of 7.8 and 150 to 250 PPM hardness.
I believe that our 50 to 70 years or so of tank breeding fish can't and won't change millions of years of evolution.
Agree with the above, with oscars, HLLE is a chronic condition, it slowly creeps in as they age, and is often a combination of hard, high conductivity water and elevated nitrate.
I consider 20ppm nitrate, in combination with hard water unhealthy for soft water fish.
If by 8, you mean 8 grains of hardness, this is high enough to be problematic.
My tap water in Wisconsin was 7 grains hardness (250 ppm TH) so I did not consider it conducive to keeping large soft water Amazonian cichlid species.
So for any soft water species I kept, I would mix collected rain water with tap water to about 50% for water changes (and often soak leaf litter in it to provide anti bacterial tannins).
For me this meant only keeping small soft water fish like killifish, where the rain water I collected would be sufficient to dilute the hardness of my tap, large Amazonian cichlidss that need massive water changes to remain healthy, were just not practical in my tanks.
Below some collection point data, showing water type disparity of South, and Central American water types.
F09E3EF9-94A4-4C8F-B51E-B5274712344F_1_201_a.jpeg
above and below are the type water condition ranges you may find oscars living in, in S America.
F4743C82-2314-439D-89DC-B243A12BE111_1_201_a.jpeg
But below the conditions you might find Central and N American cichlids like JDs
46A428DB-8D33-46A0-913B-4F52858F3EB9_1_201_a.jpeg
831F57A2-B5A0-4575-8C14-5F8384697AF5_1_201_a.jpeg
 
Thank you!

I understand the fuzzy driftwood haha it does get fuzzy, most of my driftwood is fuzzy to some degree hah

Something I used when I had my goldfish was these plastic reptile plants that I draped downward into the tank, it floated a little out from the wall and my goldfish would hide behind the plants and the plants added to the upper levels of the tank.
Thank you for the idea.
 
Agree with the above, with oscars, HLLE is a chronic condition, it slowly creeps in as they age, and is often a combination of hard, high conductivity water and elevated nitrate.
I consider 20ppm nitrate, in combination with hard water unhealthy for soft water fish.
If by 8, you mean 8 grains of hardness, this is high enough to be problematic.
My tap water in Wisconsin was 7 grains hardness (250 ppm TH) so I did not consider it conducive to keeping large soft water Amazonian cichlid species.
So for any soft water species I kept, I would mix collected rain water with tap water to about 50% for water changes (and often soak leaf litter in it to provide anti bacterial tannins).
For me this meant only keeping small soft water fish like killifish, where the rain water I collected would be sufficient to dilute the hardness of my tap, large Amazonian cichlidss that need massive water changes to remain healthy, were just not practical in my tanks.
Below some collection point data, showing water type disparity of South, and Central American water types.
View attachment 1449900
above and below are the type water condition ranges you may find oscars living in, in S America.
View attachment 1449901
But below the conditions you might find Central and N American cichlids like JDs
View attachment 1449902
View attachment 1449903
Thank you for the GREAT information. I appreciate it. I ordered some Metronidazole for him from Fish Pharm. I will look into what you suggested.
 
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