New fish getting picked on

[Seahorse8383]

Ok so I just introduced a 3 inch albino Oscar to my 6 inch jack dempseys new tank. My Jack occasionally tries to bite my Oscars tail. He dosen't spend the whole day chasing him or anything but he does try to bite him whenever they are near each other. I realize that there is a size difference but Oscars grow so fast I figured it would be fine until he gets bigger. I would like advice on weather there is anything I could do to distract my jack from picking with my Oscar. Should I add a dither? Tall plants ? They are in a 6 foot 125 gallon tank and it is just the two of them. Thanks in advance.

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[xraycer]

Add plenty of driftwood, plants, and rocks for them to establish territory and give places for the oscar to take refuge in and just be out of sight. If the aggression gets really bad then you may have to set up a divider until the oscar grows to a more formiable size. Rearranging a tanks decor when adding a new addition is always a great idea. GL

 

[Seahorse8383]

Thanks

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[Strohs58]

Even if they were the same size, the faster growing oscar would still be much younger and immature, and you'd have essentially a Jr high student, bullying a large Grade School kid.

 

[Empyreal]

IMO Always make sure you oscar is bigger than the other fish in a cichlid community tank. They are usually push overs by cichlid standards (yes yes i know sometimes theres a hyper aggressive individual here and there). This way the have some weight to keep the other fish at bay. You will be more successful this way. Of course you don't want it so big that it can eat the others, but you get the point.

 

[duanes]

Anytime you add a new fish to an already established tank, territories have been set by the older inhabitants, and the new fish is at a disadvantage.
Best to rearrange everything to blur boundaries.

 

[spazmattik]

IMO Always make sure you oscar is bigger than the other fish in a cichlid community tank. They are usually push overs by cichlid standards (yes yes i know sometimes theres a hyper aggressive individual here and there). This way the have some weight to keep the other fish at bay. You will be more successful this way. Of course you don't want it so big that it can eat the others, but you get the point.

This has been the case IME also. Ive always had an oscar that was a good bit larger than everything it was housed with. The only time i ran into an issue was when i had a male salvini almost catch up to the oscar in growth and started beating him up bad. Seperated the oscar, power fed him and put them back together without issue.