Yeah i got a bala once and my oscar chomped it within ten minutes. I'd save the other fish if I were you.
My 10in oscar is very mild now but he was very aggressive when he was like 4-7inches. he mellowed out now that he shares a tank with a turtle. keep him occupied, give him lots of attention, have him begging for food, that should have him less concerned with the other fish.
There are many set ups with cichlids and schooling fish. Use the search function and you should find plenty. One of your problems is that you offer feeder fish to your cichlids. This will make it very difficult to keep any smaller fish with them. Many people including myself don't practice giving feeder fish to our cichlids. Other than their potential disease and parasite risk, goldfish and the like have very little nutritional value. But that's another topic. You can search that too.
When you go to turn it in get a ten gallon or twenty gallon the longer you have aquariums the more you are going to need it especially right now when your setting the tank up. You can use it to quarinteen fish seperate fish and many other things. Next oscar you get get a bigger one so you know the behaviour before you put it in the tank so you know its not going to attack your fish. Idk about getting one thats not going to try to eat your fish because oscars seem like natural predators from all of the ones ive seen grow up.AHHHHH MY TANK IS GOING INSANE!
two of my bala's are showing mating behaviors (still too small (5 in) to produce young, but it looks like I have a pair) and its making my Oscar go crazy because they are swimming around so much. He's swimming around nipping anything that he can, so everything is kinda in panic right now. IDK what to do, the oscar really has to go but my LFS closed
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I try to keep him occupied but after a couple minutes he goes off and attacks the other fish.
So tomorrow I'm returning him, if the LFS offers to give me a different one for me to try my luck with, should I take that offer and get a new one? or should I stop because most oscars won't fit in with my setup?
When you go to turn it in get a ten gallon or twenty gallon the longer you have aquariums the more you are going to need it especially right now when your setting the tank up. You can use it to quarinteen fish seperate fish and many other things. Next oscar you get get a bigger one so you know the behaviour before you put it in the tank so you know its not going to attack your fish. Idk about getting one thats not going to try to eat your fish because oscars seem like natural predators from all of the ones ive seen grow up.
If your for sure getting the 210
I would just try again but dont impulse buy a bad one!
Watch them for like ten minutes to see which ones are the bullies and then pick from the rest.