: *(

[kandy12]

today my jack dempsey ate my 2 baby leapord oscars how did this happen?

 

[pica_nuttalli]

probably with his mouth.

sorry for the graveyard humor but JDs are known to be aggressive and are known fish-killers. how it happened is that you tried to mix two S. American cichlids and one species decided that it didn't want to share.

i feel your pain, but don't try to replace those oscars. any replacements will probably be killed as well.

 

[Dwarfs]

probably with his mouth.

sorry for the graveyard humor but JDs are known to be aggressive and are known fish-killers. how it happened is that you tried to mix two S. American cichlids and one species decided that it didn't want to share.

i feel your pain, but don't try to replace those oscars. any replacements will probably be killed as well.

Actually, it was probably just the JD's natural instinct to eat smaller creatures. Any fish will eat a smaller fish if it can, excluding some strictly vegetarian fish. However, if the baby oscars weren't actually eaten and just beat to death, the JD doesn't want other fish in his tank, specifically cichlids and fish similar to cichlids (medium sized anabantoids for example). There is a big difference between aggression and hunger drive

IME, the closer in shape one cichlid is to another, the more they will fight, and if there aren't any similar looking cichlids, they will go for the next closest thing.

 

[pica_nuttalli]

good point on the "if it looks like it might fit in his mouth, and if its alive, your fish will probably try to eat it"

for some reason i misread "ate" as "killed".

kandy, what size tank do you have? what size is the JD and what size were your baby oscars? it is in theory still possible for your JD to have other tankmates.

 

[Dwarfs]

Yep, catfish, large shoalers, and medium sized loaches (there are more options) would most likely work out well with your JD But, how big is the tank in gallons?

 

[freddyk]

probably with his mouth.

And in the end this really is the answer. Big fish eat small fish.