chad_alyssa

hi i waz just wondering if a 60 gallon tank would be big enough for jsut him???

thank now i will have some info to read up on him..anything eles would be nice to

Thanks Everyone for the information . . . I will be more careful not to take the word of the workers at our LFS in the future, although I was pretty sure it was far from a convict. We will make sure to move him to the tank we have been using as quarentine for our sick fishes and find a suitable tank for it as we would like to keep it. Not much information to be found about them though. Do any of you know about any good sites to learn more about this fish? Any help would be appreciated.

hi i have jsut bought a fish from the pet store and they ahve told me it is a convict..these are some pic of the fish he is the one with strips...he is white black and has blue oin his lowee fins...if u can help me that would be awosme thanks!!!

i think with any new food you would have to offer it at least a few times for the fish to realize that 'hey, this is food, and it tastes good!', lol.

LOL ya true if its new they dont know wat it is till they taste it lol

i would not feed your oscars feeder fish of any kind unless you have a chance to quarantine the feeders for at least 4 weeks in a tank at your house, or breed the feeders yourself. one advantage to breeding your own feeders is that you can 'gut load' them right from the start by feeding with nutritional food that you would feed the oscars and that way the oscars are getting a better diet via the contents of the feeder's stomachs. as well, breeding your own feeders gives you the opportunity to always have feeder fish on hand. guppies and most small livebearer fish are a good option for feeders.

feeder fish, most commonly goldfish, are notorious for having disease and are really not that nutritious for your oscars. as well, feeding live foods like feeder fish will 'train' your oscars to only accept live food and then they will turn up their noses at the pellets, which puts you in a tight spot if you don't have any feeder fish to feed them.

it is your choice to feed live foods or not.

i would go with cichlid pellets, frozen bloodworms and mysis shrimp, and any other large meaty food meant for cichlids. you could go get those big de-veined shrimp/prawns from the grocery store and take off the tails and husk them (take off the crunchy exoskeleton outside part) and feed those. it's a good idea to rotate between at least three different kinds of food for any fish. you could also see if your oscars would like to nibble on various veggies, such as zucchini or cucumber. I know my juvenile oscar likes cucumber. another option is various worms and bugs. a friend of mine has a large adult oscar and he enjoys the 'super worms' that you can buy in a plastic tub at most Petsmart type places. earthworms are good too, if you can verify they are free of pesticides and contaminants.

Thanks

ya i had that problem with my first oscar he wouldnt eat anything but fish soi slowly had to get him eatting pellets but now he loves them as do my new ones this morning they all were eatting them none of them will eat any frozzen stuff i bought krill blood worms at petland and theyn wont eat them frozzen or unthawed i dont know if its cuz its somthing new or not..i tryed millworms and that dindt go over good at all well at leaset with the oscars but my turtle waz sure happy...maybe i will try the shrimp form grocery store, i try to give them all kinds of options for food but they sure know wat they like lol is it normaly for them to grab the food and spit it out and do that a few time my first oscar did that with the mill worms and earth worms??? thanks for all the tips it helps alot

Oh i didnt realise they would do that...so if i got a 240 gallon tank and got one more would they be ok then??i checked on them this morning and they were all ready to eat the pellets last night i put my red platys in the tank just to help with a distraction and there is no fish left so im going to go out today and get feeder fish for them the guy sed i would need 50 a week but i think its to mcuh feeder fish cuz there so fatty as to y i bought 2 different kinda of pellets and them seem to like them..is that true about feeder fish them being fatty?? thanks for everything everyone

A tank that small with fish like that once a week isn't good enough I do 2 water changes a week on my 75g with less of a bioload than that.

ok i will try that for the next few weeks till my big tank is build...the one that waz looking abd is now swimming around and fighting back befoire she waznt and i waz worryed but i got some food in her and now she looks much better...thanks for everything..

Well your tank is horribly over stalked, I kept 2 small oscars in a 55g for a few weeks and the tank was dirty all the time so I got rid of the oscars.

I know I'm not the one who should be talking but with oscars buy the tank then the fish not the other way around.

ya i have to small of a tank i ahve to clean it once a week for sure so that is y im building a biger tank one that can house all my oscars....but they are very sensitive fish thats for sure...

How big of a tank do you have them in? As a general rule Oscars requires a minimum of 50g each (3xO=>150g), with Heavy filtration and frequent water changes (50% once or twice per week) to keep them happy/healthy.... They also may need some space of their own, if your first red O had been used to being the solitary fish in the tank and the others have no space to hide then they may never get along, this stressful situation could lead to very sick fish and/or one of them getting killed. If your tank is big enough there are a few thing you can try...

*lower the temp.

*remove the fish from the tank, re-arrange the tank and introduce them to a neutral space, then one may not feel his/her space is being invaded.

*add dividers to you tank to keep them separated

*add some driftwood to break the lines of sight and add hiding spaces

If you can't meet these needs then it would be best to return the fish to your LFS,

Good luck,

B

Thanks as of right now there not in a big tank there oin a 45 gallon as im in the middle of building a 240 gallon...andi think thats y there not happy..the new red oscar finnaly had some fish and pellets today so i am very happy about that but imgoing to try wat u sed and get some hiding spots for them..and if that doesnt work then i will get them in differeent tanks till ia hve my big one built..thanks once again for ur help..

hi i have 3 oscars one tiger and 2 red..i just got the tiger oscar and red , i had the one red for about 3 months then jsut added the other 2 and at first they were all at the top of the trank and it seemed like they needed more air it looked like they were gasping for air so i put a bubble thing in there tanka nd now they seem to be fine..but now the red oscar i had first which is the smallest is being very mean to the other two he will bit at then and him and the tiger oscar will shake there tails the other red oscar wont do nuthing it jsut trys to get away but doesnt fight back or shake its tail..i dont know much about the fish or if this in normaly or not or if they need to be in different tanks or what, so if anyone can give me a little help as to wat i can do for them or y there acting like this that would be very greatful...thanks so much..Alyssa

You should start a new thread, probably in the community section or in help. It would get more replies there.

Welcome everyone

Edit - Nevermind... I see you already did. Best of luck.

thanks

hi i have 3 oscars one tiger and 2 red..i just got the tiger oscar and red , i had the one red for about 3 months then jsut added the other 2 and at first they were all at the top of the trank and it seemed like they needed more air it looked like they were gasping for air so i put a bubble thing in there tanka nd now they seem to be fine..but now the red oscar i had first which is the smallest is being very mean to the other two he will bit at then and him and the tiger oscar will shake there tails the other red oscar wont do nuthing it jsut trys to get away but doesnt fight back or shake its tail..i dont know much about the fish or if this in normaly or not or if they need to be in different tanks or what, so if anyone can give me a little help as to wat i can do for them or y there acting like this that would be very greatful...thanks so much..Alyssa

hi im new to the whole tank thing well i ahve had them befory one but never the fish i have and i ahve a few questions...my one red oscar is bitting and pushing my tiger oscar and my tiger one is bigger i ahve 3 in the tank and those to r mean to eachother i just bought the one red and one tiger and already had the one red oscar. when they get to close to eachother there tails shake can anyone tell me wat they r doing and how to hlep them...we just went to day and bought a thing to make bubbles in the water cuz they wouldnt leave the top of water and it looked like they were gasping for air and they seem fine now other then the fighting wat should i do?? thanks Alyssa