suggestions on 150 gal?

[BigA]

I've been doing maintenance on a 150 gal tank, whose sole occupants is a pair of oscars. One 12", one 8". My clients would like to put more fish in, but they are apprehensive because the oscars are so large. Tank is filtered by an XP3 and a FX5, so filtration is not an issue. I was thinking of a couple more big cichlids, perhaps a red devil or jd, or something else.

What would you do?

Thanks is advance.

[Parachromis1]

try a gt or a red terror or a jag.

rd might be a little pushy.

[firestorm]

I from personal experience with oscars, jd's, gt's, jags except red terrors or devils, I would honestly not put any of these with the oscars. Oscars IMO are far too gentle to be housed with more aggressive fish in a 150. I would personally recommend some more peaceful cichlids like severums, silver dollars, or something along those lines. I have heard from other peoples experiences as well with mixing these guys. A single JD might do fine, since they do not grow super large.

[BigA]

try a gt or a red terror or a jag.

rd might be a little pushy.

Ok. I may try one of them.

I from personal experience with oscars, jd's, gt's, jags except red terrors or devils, I would honestly not put any of these with the oscars. Oscars IMO are far too gentle to be housed with more aggressive fish in a 150. I would personally recommend some more peaceful cichlids like severums, silver dollars, or something along those lines. I have heard from other peoples experiences as well with mixing these guys. A single JD might do fine, since they do not grow super large.

What about tinfoils? My worry is that the oscars will kill off more peaceful fish. They've been pretty aggressive. Killed off a common pleco that was in there, killed off another oscar that was put in there. That's why I was thinking something more aggressive, but my client has made it clear that nothing bad happens to the oscars. Call it sentimental value.

Thanks for the advice so far...

[firestorm]

Tinfoil barbs should work, just try to get them as large as possible to start with if you can. In most cases oscars are not highly aggressive, but will eat, or attempt to eat anything they think will fit in their mouths. Did they see the oscars actually kill the pleco? He might have just been ill and they could sense that so they killed him. Another thing, is most of the time oscars will not accept another oscar unless they grow up together, and they will kill another oscar for that reason. A JD might work with them in a tank that size, since they will mainly stay middle to bottom and oscars tend to stay near the middle or top. Also as I said other fish that would work well with them would be silver dollars or severum's, I have also seen them kept with frontosas. Other fish that might work are clown loaches (again buy them as large as possible).

[cale262]

I'd put 5 lrg. SilverDollars in with them, My Oscars are messy eaters and the SD's love the left overs,...Although SD"s are the stupidest fish going IMHO which also makes them entertaining. When I first put them in with my Oscars, the biggest SD squared off with my tiger O "IROK' immediately after being introduced into the tank, IROK seamed to be caught off guard initially by this and turned in retreat, My following thought was "Great, I've got the biggest pansy cichlid going" 5 minutes later IROK was in full counter attack mode, my next thought "Crap, IROK's gonna kill them in no time" He spent the next 2-3hrs letting that SD know it was his tank, there were silver scales everywhere...To sum up, they get along great but every once in a while that SD forgets who the Alpha is and gets put in his place really fast,...My 3 SD's are truely stooges in denial.

an older pic of IROK and the SD's...