Pleco Bitten By Tiger Oscars! Help

[Mollygirls]

Hello all,

My husband and I are new to the cichlids world and have a question about plecos and tiger oscars.. We tried to put our 4" common pleco in the tank today with the tiger oscars and they bit him and beat the tar out of him! Poor guy.. We took him out immediatly and put him back in the 30 gallon tank he was originally in. I am not sure if we should even put a pleco in with the oscars now because I dont want to see him/her hurt!

So any advice on if we should attempt this again and if so how to go about it so the pleco doesnt get hurt.. Or do I need a different type of pleco?

Any help would be appreciated.. Thanks in advanced!

P.S. The pleco isnt hurt just scared and probably a bit angry with us for putting him in the tank!

 

[england]

Hi and welcome, oscars are new world cichlid's

ok how big is your tank? oscars need big a 75us gallon tank for one and a 150us gallon for a pair, you can keep pleco's with oscars i never had a problem, i would be inclined to remove oscar, rearrange tank totally, then first add the plec leave about an hour then rebag oscar and float it for around 30mins then release

 

[Mollygirls]

oops, Sorry I didnt realize.. As you can see I am very new to this..

Thank you for your advice I will be sure to take it once I figure out what I am going to do with this stupid tank now.. sigh. My tank is a 55 gallon and we have 4 oscars in there.. The woman at the pet store said 1" of fish for every gallon and these guys would only grow to about 10 " each so that still leaves 15 gallons left.. Or so we thought!

So my hubby just informed me that we need to go buy a bigger tank! YIKES! We have 3 already up and running..

I am going to assume that I was misinformed at the pet store.. sigh..


Thanks for your help once again and I will be sure to post in the new world section next time..

 

[OscarWilde]

The minimum tank sizes Nelly posted are a subject of some dispute. Over at Oscarfish.com which is a specialist Oscar site the minimum reccomended size is 55G but 75G is ideal. If you want to keep more Oscars you should add about 35-40 Gallons for each one (adding 75 for each Oscar would result in a very large empty looking tank by the time you get to 10!)

I expect a lot of people on here wil disagree but dont be put off. Get a second opinion over on one of the specialist sites. You should be able to keep one of your Oscars but the rest should certainly go back.

 

[Mollygirls]

I am under the immpression that it is one inch of fish per gallon.. Is that only for the smaller tropical fish as in mollies, platy's, guppies ect..?? As this is the rule of thumb we have been following. Sheesh I would hate to think that all my tanks are over stocked and my fish are unhappy *sigh*.

My husband and I are sitting here stressing over how to make the 4 oscars happy. So in reality we need a HUGE tank or 2 HUGE tanks? He is having a very hard time parting with any of his oscars.

I guess right now we are okay because the 4 are only about 3" each but I am assuming that they will grow fast. Sorry I dont know much about these guys as you can probably tell.

Hubby is more the fish person in our house! Perhaps I should put him on here rather then me..LOL

Thanks for all the insight.. Its amazing how misinformed we are when asking the fish store questions.. ARGH! I am worried now about any info they have given us..

 

[Tolak]

The "one inch of fish per gallon" statement is just part of a guideline. The other half, and probably the most important part is "Of slim bodied fish that grow to no larger than three inches". Oscars are not slim bodied, and grow much larger than three inches.

Oscars are messy fish, requiring a larger water volume to dilute waste products. The footprint of a standard 55 gallon is 13"x48". You need to have a minimum of 1.5x the fish's adult size the one dimension to allow for turning, and 3-4x the adult size the other way for swimming room. While the water volume of a 55 is barely adequate for an oscar the footprint is not. Thus the suggested 75 gallon, 18"x48".

Oscars are cichlids, many cichlids will get territorial. Four adult oscars growing out to try to get a pair would need at minimum a 150 gallon tank. Pairing cichlids are very aggressive, with four fish you have an 87.5% chance of getting a pair. That means the odd two fish out will be subject to some serious aggression.

A pair is two fish of opposite sex that have paired off, not any two fish of the same species put in a tank together. You may get by with one oscar long term in a 55, expect to do plenty of water changes as well as filter maintenance.

Aggression with cichlids often varies from fish to fish. Some oscars may not bother the plec, some may see any tankmate as something that needs to be killed. I had a 14" plec in with my oscar, who was about 8" at the time. The oscar used to spit gravel at the plec, the plec would chase the oscar.

This apparently changed, when the oscar caused a little eye damage to the plec. Oscars are smart fish, and I guess he noticed the plec couldn't see him too well from one side. It took him less than a day to shred the plec, unfortunately I was at work during this.

Much LFS info is repeated old wives tales mixed with general misinformation. I'll bet they never mentioned the need for a divider with 4 oscars growing out in a 55 either.

 

[Mollygirls]

Wow.. was I ever misinformed then.. sigh.. There was no mention at all of a divider.. The woman said to my husband what size tank do you have for these guys.. My hubby said a 55 gallon and she asked how many oscars he wanted.. He said I understand that 55gallons can only hold 4 max so thats what I want.. and she said if he wanted more then 4 she would refuse to sell them to us do to the fact that a 55 is just the right size for the 4...but more could cause issues.. Apparently 4 is causing issues as it is..

So in reality I should tell my hubby to build a small swimming pool in my basement to hold these 4 guys/girls!!

Right now they all seem to be getting along fairly well.. There hasnt been any fighting, they all swim together and "sleep" together.. I havent seen one fish seperated as of yet but I assume its because they are still babies..

Looks like my hubby and I have some sorting out to so eh!

Thanks again