Will my oscars get along ?

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Big Dempsey

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Oct 27, 2009
221
1
0
North Dakota , USA
I recently got 3 more beautiful, healthy oscars, a red , a tiger; and an albino red. I already had 2 snow tigers , they are all realativly the same size about 7" .
The 3 new ones basically took over the tank and wont let my original 2 on the other side of the tank, they are making all these weird jerky movements and flaring thier gills and trying to dig up and move everything on their side of the tank; and being somewhat aggresive to the others , the tiger is being the most aggresive. My origanal 2 do this w/my dempsy.:confused:
I just got them on monday 12/27, also the red oscar has'nt eaten yet .
I have a 90 gallon w 2 emperor 400 filters and i do a 30 gallon water change weekly , Will they eventually get along ? and why are the three new ones acting this way ? Thanks for the help !
 
yeah you are going to need AT LEAST a 180 for 5 Os if they are all already 7in then that tank is already way over crowded they are fighting because they dont have enough room, also you will need to do 50% wc at least to keep water up to par with that many dirty fish in there, make sure your nitrates dont go above 20 or you are risking your Os getting HITH
 
is the dempsey the only other none O cichlid in the tank? if so then a 180 should be ok with really good filtration, just pray that a pair doesn't form or all hell may break loose all of these little mini monsters can get up to 16in so if they start breeding they can really do some damage to each other but you just have to keep an eye out for aggression
 
yes the dempsey is the only other non o fish in there, the reason i got them is they were left in an apt biulding abandonded and they were going to be flushed or disposed of , i couldnt see that happen !
 
ok yeah thats great that you saved them and as long as you can get the bigger tank soon then they should be fine GOOD LUCK
 
My rule of thumb with Oscars is 50 gallons per fish with a min tank size of 75 gallons for one fish. Oscars but a high load on your biological and mechanical filtration so the more water the better. So 5 oscars I would not do anything smaller than a 240 (if you go smaller you will need to do bi-weekly water changes to keep your water clean). 180 is too small IMO for 5 oscars, not enough space or water. Also with 5 you are probably going to get a pair so if you want to keep them all in the same tank get a grate to section off one side of the tank for the pair or you will end up with dead oscars.
 
You've got 5 Oscars and a JD in a 90 g tank and wonder why they're fighting? lol I'm sorry but that's pretty self-explanatory. Oscars aren't as aggressive as a lot of cichlids but they're far from gentle schooling fish. I'll be shocked if you can keep 5 adult Oscars and a JD in even a 180 g without fights and torn bodies. That only leaves 30 g of water per fish. You're way overboard with the bio-load and that doesn't even take into account the territorialism of 6 foot-long sexually mature cichlids crammed into a 6'x2' area.
:popcorn: Pass the salt.
 
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