Oscar community tank

[Jag586]

if a tank was big enough could you have like7 living in peace together?

 

[Cichlids-r-beasts]

Yes but we would be speaking anything 240+ here

 

[Jag586]

How much space would each oscar need

 

[#.$]

I would recommend at least a 5 foot × 2 foot tank for adults. They grow to very large size some getting bigger then 18 inch.

 

[Drstrangelove]

With 7 Oscars in a 240, you're looking at a minimum of an 85% water change every 3 days. That's to keep nitrates in the 15-25 range which isn't great.

If you're planning on breeding, I can't tell you what their eggs would do, but in studies the eggs of other species have a very high mortality rate at anything over 3-5 ppm.


Also note that Oscars are notoriously dirty eaters and water changes might be preferable more frequently simple because of the excess debris that might be in the tank. Again, I haven't kept 7 at one time, but I would suspect the tank will need a lot of cleaning.

 

[Jag586]

My idea is to make a 8 1/2 foot x 4 foot tank x 2 1/2 foot tall it may be an extra foot wider but I need to do some measuring to be sure

 

[Jag586]

If it's one foot wider it be one foot longer

 

[jaws7777]

I would look into a drip system. Water changes on a tank with 7 0's even at that size would probably be intersting lol

 

[Jag586]

I ran a water line to where I'm building the tank last year, the purpose was to make filling it after a wc easier, I was going to have a line connected to the tank that I can open a valve and do a wc. I don't mind a drop system I'd just have to look into how to do it