Spliting A Tank

[lilstephii]

hi everyone. B)
i recently bought a 55 gallon tank. I usually had 10s and 20 gallons. I bought a seperater for the middle and thought it would be a good idea to split for aggressivve fish and community fish. So on one side I had 2 baby african chilids and on the other a catfish, barb, and a baby angelfish. Everybody in the tank is small so they have room to grow. But i recently realized i dont think its possible for me to do this because all my community fish die. My barb has some swolling on his eye. My angelfish died and my catfish is fine. But i had a jack dempsey which i bought for the aggresive side and they beat him up so i put him with the community fish side and he grew his fins and everything. a week later he died. As well as the chilids beat up 2 jack dempseys and an oscar. Do i only put Chilids in the tank with them then? cause they were mixed at the petstore with oscars. As well as i checked my PH and its BLUE results. meaning 7.5 or higher . I know Chilids like high PH.

My Question is because of the high PH . Im sure the community fish wont survive if i keep buying more and if i take the seperator out what else can i mix with them as well as is a high PH alright?

Thank You,
stephanie

 

[rowdyburns21]

My PH is someone near 8, as long as you acclimatize your fish properly the high PH shouldnt be a problem

 

[indigoj]

Oscars get HUGE, IMO too big for half a 55 gal even on their own, probably too big for the whole 55gal....

What type of Barbs? Some can be nippy especially with thing like angels with long fins.

 

[chishnfips]

your african cichlids should not be in with the other fish, even if you have a separator. They come from the otherside of the world compared to the other fish you have in there so require totally different water conditions. Africans like hard alkaline water, where as the other fish you have prefer soft acidic water from the amazon region.

What fish do you want to keep?

 

[lilstephii]

i decided to make the whole tank African Cichlids. I took the sepeator down . and i got more rocks yestruday. Im very happy by the way it looks. Theres plenty of room to swim as well as plenty of hiding spaces. So theres 2 cichlids. One is one inch the other is 2 inches. And i bought a baby cichlid yesturday after set up. Its royal blue. and a baby oscar. The Oscar actually bonded with the Red Jewel who killed all my fish in the past. Everyone is peaceful. Yes im aware they get big. When the time comes that gives me an excuse to get a larger tank. B)

The petstore had african cichlids (some brackish) with a jack dempsey. Is it possible to put brackish and freshwater cichlids together??