Not digging my fish situation.

[molotov256]

Allright... I don't know what I'm asking here or what answer I'm looking for, but I'm not too happy with the way my fishkeeping hobby is progressing, so maybe somebody here can help get me on the right path again, lol.

So here's the situation... I have 2 tanks, both 55 gallons. As this all started, the one in my living room is my original tank with a sand bottom. I had 2 african cichlids, 2 gouramis, 5 catfish, a peacock eel, a crayfish and a pleco in there. The gouramis are doing fine with the cichlids, contrary to popular advice, so that's not the issue at hand

The other tank I got just because it was really cheap ($40 for tank and stand, rock on!) so I set it up in my bedroom and got 2 oscars and a crayfish for it. I like oscars, I wanted an oscar tank.

Anyhow, long story made short, I lost the peacock eel in my living room tank (he always seemed miserable in there, no matter how many times I got the water checked and tested), the pleco died because I kept the tank too clean, and the crayfish probably got eaten by the bigger cichlid or something, but he definately died... a lot.

Then, in my oscar tank in the bedroom, one of the two oscars got some sort of fin deteriorating thing going on (always happens to my oscars, it seems), although the other one did fine for a while. The one with the fin problem died, and the other oscar started looking kinda bleh, so I took him out and put him in the living room tank, where he is much happier. The crayfish did fine for a while, until he climbed out of the tank one night and I found him all the way downstairs the next morning.

So yeah, should I consider this just a bad string of events, or maybe I'm a lousy fishkeeper? I don't know what to do with the fish I have now, because the oscar gets sulky whenever I put him back in the bedroom tank, but one of the chilids really beats the @#! out of him when they're together, so now I have that cichlid all alone in the bedroom tank, and I don't know where to go from here.

That post was entirely too long winded, but if you read it all, I thank you for that! :?

 

[Rach101]

.....im sorry... o.o;;

 

[oldshell4481]

i have almost the same tank setups, 1 55 tank with 2 oscars, and the other 55 with cichlids, both in my bedroom, would you're oscar be happier if he had another tankmate??? somethin that will grow at the same rate, and get as big as he is???

 

[TankGirl]

I think you have had a bad run of luck in general, and with the oscars the problems you have had are almost surely related to water quality, which is not unusual when it comes to oscars due to their high level of waste. An oscar will outgrow a 55, so you may want to consider returning him and redoing one of the 55's completely with less demanding fish. You could make a very nice community tank with schooling fish, maybe an angel or two, or something like that. I think that might get your confidence back up.

You may want to get another pleco for your other tank, or perhaps a couple three bristlenose ancistrus for it, since a common pleco will also outgrow a 55. The BN's do well with Africans, and then you can feed it algae wafers and veggies instead of letting it fend for itself.

What kind of Africans do you have? In most cases it will be difficult to introduce any largish fish in this tank without a major redecorating job at the same time, to force the Africans to reconfigure their territories. That gives a new fish a chance to claim his own area along with the existing fish.