I have 3 Tiger Oscars and a Jack Dempsey in a 180 gallon tank. I've had them for 6 months, and everything has been cool. The biggest oscar is about 4", the other 2 are just short of 3". The main purpose of the Jack was to give them something to chase. That has worked fine for the last 6 months, but saturday I came home from work and noticed the big oscar had skin hanging off his face, and a small divot in his side. I removed a rock setting that I thought was the culprit and thought little more of it. I came home from work and noticed the big guy had some fresh wounds. Now I was freaked because I thought it was HITH. So as I was frantically checking my water quality I noticed the 2 smaller oscars swim up to the big guy and BITE HIM! Repeatedly. This was the source of his damage. These guys were buddies for so long that this is pretty much breaking my heart. When they first moved into their 180g. they would float around the airstones and let the bubbles shoot them up to the surface. They would huddle in the corner everytime I used the python. They would even work together to try and catch the Jack Dempsey. Now, pretty much over night the smaller o's are trying to take the big guy out. My wife loves the big guy (whose name is Gamble, if you're wondering), and has instructed me to do what needs to be done to protect him. Short of buying a new tank. I've rearranged the tank. I'm running low on options here. These fish are my pets, but I'm not going to sit back and watch one of my animals being mauled. At this point I'm leaning towards giving the other to o's to my LFS. The guy who runs it is a good dude, and would find them a home. It's just really disheartening to have it come to this, but I can't let an animal suffer like this. Any ideas?
Oscar crisis
- Thread starter HarpoGarza
- Start date
It's best to keep just 1 or 6 or more. Because eventually they will gang up on the weaker one. And in the cichlid world size usually doesn't matter. Unless you are puting a 3" Oscar with a 12" lets say peacock bass. Anyways, and seeing how you only have a 180 gallon tank you do not have enough room for 6 Oscars anyway.
Thats trued size doesnt really matter. You can either find another tank and have the two oscars seprate from the bigger one, or you can trade them in to your lfs for something else... thats prob. your best bet.
Well a solution would be to buy a light diffuser from Home Depot or the local hardware store. Cut it with a pair of scissors and use twist ties to hold it up to one of the supports on the top of the tank. It sounds like 2 of your oscars may be a pair. Save the big guy by using stress coat or similar to restore his slime coat and prevent infection. Also keep the other guys away because they will just continue to tear him apart until he either goes into shock and stops eating or dies from infection. Good Luck 
I strongly disagree with EvilxYard the fact that you cant put 6 oscars in a 180 is ridiculous. I have a 6" Tiger O and he's only 5 months old and he's in a 180 with a 5" Jag, 4" GT, 4" JD, 5" Texas, 6" Salvini, 5" Jewel and 5" Convict. There is occasionally some chasing and nipping but a 180 is more then ok for all these fish full grown the key is i raised them in my custom 80 all as juveniles except the salvini, convict and jewel were a little bigger considering there growth rate is slower. I think your problem is you dont have enough fish in there, once you allow big aggressive fish to claim terroritory they are going to fight to the death to keep others out but by adding more fish these areas grow smaller to the point that individual areas to claim aren't there. Now i have seen oscars at a young age act very aggressive towards each other but most aggressive fish dont like having another fish just like them in the same tank so i'd say get rid of the smaller two and pick of some other aggressive fish and add variety to your tank plus its entertaining to see the different personalities that different fish have and just how different they actually are and those differences is what makes them get along but hey thats just my experience and opinion....Good Luck!!!!!
Lower the temperature. That should take care of some of the aggression level. The 2 smaller ones might have become a pair and the big one is just the thrid wheel and they may not be excepting it as part of their group anymore.
I lowered the temp, and that seems to have worked for now. I also bought some light diffusers, just in case. I'm off today, so I'll be observing them for a few hours. Thanks for the advise. That's why MFK kicks all kinds of @$$!
