Thinning out the stock

[missmary]

So I had a 180g with 2 oscars (one adult, one juvie), 6 blood parrots (two baseball-sized, 4 less than half that size), an 8" green severum, a 6" green terror, and 2 10-12" plecostomus.

I know it sounds really overcrowded, but my family has been caring for the tank (I'm finishing up with college) and has been periodically adding to the stock.

Everything has been fine and well; no apparent aggression, decent nitrate readings, etc... that is, until this past week. Two of the parrots have died (the smallest one and the HUGE one ). My mother blames the larger of the plecs for the death of the largest parrot (she claims it's been fighting with it for some time... do you think it could have killed it?), but I think it's time to drastically reduce the stock of the tank.

We were thinking of keeping the two oscars, the two largest blood parrots, and either the severum or green terror. What do you think?

I would like to note that this tank is heavily filtered (3 hob filters and 2 canister filters). I used to be able to make it home much more often to make water changes, but as of recent haven't been able to and the family does not have the time to do so.

 

[gnuisance]

highly doubtful that the pleco killed the parrot

 

[Legomypleco]

you gotta do water changes. with large plecos and oscars in their- at least a 50 percent change a week

 

[honda237]

i have a pleco that is pretty aggresive but its only killed two 3" or less size fish but never tried anything bigger. But do a lot of water changes. I say keep the severum cause you will have less aggresion in the tank. you could also add a convict when you thin things done.

 

[Cichlaholics Anonymous]

I would start by getting rid of the remaining blood parrots and doing large weekly water changes

 

[sick_lid]

Crappy water conditions can stress the fish out, and make them act differently. I would ditch the blood parrots and just keep all the natural fish, that's just me. The remaining stock would be perfect for that 180..

And I've seen plecos act pretty aggressive on numerous occasions. Never seen one kill a large fish, but they definitely can have attitude. Sounds like it could've just stressed the parrot beyond belief, killing it.

 

[1 ill g]

plecos could be pretty damn aggressive... my parents had a 10 inch koi killed by their big pleco...