Tank mates for evil oscar?

[Deb76]

Hello everyone!

Okay we have a very well established 90 gallon tank that is currently housing one very evil albino tiger oscar that is still just a baby, he's only about 5". The tank also houses a small school (5) of silver dollars that are also still small, around 3" in size. I have a featherfin cat also that lives in my piece of driftwood and I typically only see at night of course. I was really hoping to find another species to try that will be pretty active but will hopefully get along with the oscar.
We have alot of fish experience and at one time had 13 tanks in our home but had a great problem in trying to control the excessive humidity so we had to downsize and now only have three tanks, our 90 gallon, a 29 gallon planted tank (home to several small bichers, one large peacock eel, three angelicus botias, various rare plecos), and a 29 gallon saltwater tank (snowflake eel, baby huma huma trigger and yes I know we will need a much larger tank in the future).
Now my oscar.... I know they can be bullies at times but this guy is just crazy mean. We tried putting him in with a 6" green terror and he chased, attacked, and wouldn't leave the terror alone even after a week, finally the terror got too much damage on him and we had to rehome him as we didn't want him to get a bacterial infection or other issues. He seems to leave the silver dollars alone for the most part unless they come near him and then he will slam them but otherwise he ignores them. He doesn't mess with the featherfin because i'm sure he knows he will get his butt kicked lol. He has killed two plecos already in the tank (one rhino, one gibbiceps) and we now have a 4" huge chinese algae eater that he's taken a few scales off of so we are watching that closely. Anyone have any ideas as to what I could possibly put with this brute or should I just give up and let him have the whole tank?
Tank has a large piece of driftwood with multiple hiding area, also have two caves (multiple pieces of slate angled) and have plants to hide also. Any ideas would be appreciated. I was hoping to find a polleni or bleekeri but I can't seem to locate one.

 

[seedubs1]

Maybe a carpintis? Super cool fish, and a bit more aggressive than a GT or Saum. Was the GT or Saum male or female? They have a wide range of temperments from docile to kill everything within 3 ft. of the tank, so you may have just got a docile one.

I'd re-arange the tank when you put something else in with him so they both have to claim territory.

 

[Deb76]

hi thanks for the reply, the green terror was a male and absolutely beautiful. He was actually quite the bully himself so I figured it would be a pretty good match. There was lots of typical gill flaring and postering and I figured there was bound to be some bickering but the oscar just wouldn't stop, he just kept attacking and attacking until the green terror started having some real damage, that's when I finally said enough and removed the terror.
We actually did redo the tank figuring it would disrupt any territories that had been established and things could start "fresh" so to speak. It just didn't work. This oscar just seems intolerant of everything, he even attacks the reflection of himself. He's definately being fed enough and is well cared for so it's not a matter of hunger or anything. He's fed krill, hikari pellets, silversides, and ocean nutrition veggie pellets along with quite a few other items. He's definately not going hungry. He's not fed any live feeders as I definately don't want to increase his aggression towards other fish any further.
I was really hoping to have a rather peaceful tank as our past experience with oscars was a good one. They would bully once in awhile but that was about it, they typically lived in harmony with our gold severums, various botias and cats, and our firemouth. Granted this was in our 150 we used to have but still..... i've honestly never seen an oscar this nasty in my life.

 

[Deb76]

forgot to mention that I know frequent water changes will be needed especially if we were to add another "big guy". We have alot of filtration on this tank though, two large back filters and one large sponge filter also hidden behind plants in hopes the oscar doesn't take chunks out of it lol.

 

[Sarah88]

yeah that sucks i also had to get rid of an oscar that was mean like that, he was a rescue that someone had brought into petco that had obviously been raised in way to small of a tank and was probably alone his whole life because the only fish he didnt mess with was my argentea, every O i have had in the past was a total baby and didnt bother a thing as long as it was to big to eat but this guy was just terrible, some individuals are just kept by themselves, but yeah you could try finding a larger carpintis that might work and they are gorgeous fish but most likely hes probably going to have to be kept my himself

 

[biguebs]

maybe a jack dempsey? they don't take crap from nobody!

or, go extreme and get a jag cichlid? don't get much meaner than those guys...

other than that, the obvious would be some sort of "armored" catfish.

 

[Sarah88]

jack might work if you get a mean one but iv actually always had pansy ones, and jags are really more territorial than outright aggressive but that might actually work since it would defend its space but you would have to go with a female as a male would get entirely too large

 

[Deb76]

I thought about a Jag but then was worried about them not having enough tank space to feel comfortable with each other. I really don't want to over crowd but my tank just looks so empty. I realize this oscar is going to get very large but I was really hoping to be able to have two decent sized fish in this 90. He may just be one of those fish that doesn't want to share his tank with anyone. He totally leaves the syno featherfin alone but I almost never see him unless of course at night. The silver dollars that are in there are nice as they create movement but i'm not sure if the oscar will let them live in there once he gets older and bigger. I'm assuming my oscar is a male being he's just so aggressive and attacks even his reflection. I can't picture a female being this horrible lol.
We used to have a big male Tilapia Buttakoferi (sp) that had to live by himself because he was so evil, he couldn't even stand to be with a large syno cat he kept killing them even with tons of hiding spots so we finally gave up and just let him have the 55 to himself. This oscar reminds me alot of him in personality.
I'm starting to wonder if I may be better off trying something like a gold severum which looks totally different from him in body shape. I'm wondering if his intolerance is more based upon fish that have similar body shape to him being he doesn't bother the silver dollars too much. Any thoughts? The reason i'm hoping for some lighter colored fish and the reason behind buying the oscar was unfortunately I had the bright idea of getting black gravel for this tank instead of our usual natural river rock gravel we've always used. I wanted something different but i've learned that it seems to make the tank look much darker and fish don't seem to show up nearly as well. We have good lighting too it's just very diferent from having natural gravel I guess. We have nice powerglo lights which are nice and bright and more towards the blue spectrum instead of that awful yellow color. What about freshwater snook anyone have experience with those? our local fish store has some and they are a nice yellow/orange/gold color and have a nice body shape. Wasn't sure what their personality is though and how large they get so I didn't get any.

 

[BigUmbeeFan]

A 3 inch tilapia buttikoferi would tear that oscar up.

Oscars are whimps. They are your typical school yard bully that act tuff pushing others around until they mess with a true tuff guy.

Lb for Lb , the buttikoferi are the meanest and baddest cichlid out there hands down.

 

[RLHam3]

have you thought about another oscar? or just putting one or more of the bichirs that your growing out into the 90 gal? (i've never had a problem with bichir/cichlid combo)