Oscar tankmates?

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SinaiTSi

Aquarium Advice Newbie
Joined
Feb 28, 2006
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I've had an Oscar for a little over a year now, he has grown to about 10" so far. I would really like to put some other fish in the tank though. I probably should've put some other fish in with him in the beginning while he was smaller as he will probably try to eat any tankmates now. But, I'd like to know what I could put with him, I've considered the pleco, jaguar catfish, or pictus catfish. Also, I read that you could put tinfoil barbs with them. I have a few medium sized ones (3-4"). So, what would be a good choice OR what do you have with your Oscar?
 
Its going to be really hard to put anything in with your oscar now unless you get a decent sized fish that isn't too big to be swallowed. Plecos are usually fine because a lot of fish dont mess with them all that much. You might be able to try a Pacu or a Jack dempsey. Tinfoil barbs are great too, but i think the 3"-4" will be a little too small for a 10" oscar. good luck though!
 
A Pacu might be kinda cool, I don't really want another from the cichild family though, I was thinking more along the lines of a catfish/sucker. Thanks for suggestions.
 
I have a school of nine Giant Danios that my oscar has not been able to catch in almost a year. Sure, he tries, especially when the lights go off. Darn things are so fast that he just can't quite catch them.

They are constantly schooling back and forth across the top and make a nice contrast against the slow moving Oscar. Plus, they are cheap if your oscar is better at catching them than mine is.

I also have a Jack Dempsey and a Firemouth, but I got them before I got the baby oscar which is now about the same size or larger than your's.
 
I had siver dollars, silver sharks, salmoncatfish and chinese suckers, the story goess..... Silver dollars get the occasional nip when they go the wrong way but are GREAT! (until you get a breeding pair or even flirters, everything is food for the oscars!) Now that your oscar is so big i think it will be EXTREMELY difficult. They dont like to change. Silver sharks are great also because they are so quick. It will be ultimately up to the size of your tank, these other fish will need room to get AWAY! And the suckers... well lets just say they went missing after a while. My 4 silver dollars were about 3in in diameter and 3 silver sharks were 4 inches long. i had these fish in a 4x2x2 400litre aquarium with 4 oscars. 2 paired up so had to get another tank whitch is 8x2x2 800liters. i moved everything up into the 8ft bar the pair of oscars. at this stage the pair were about 10-11 inches and the other 2 about 8 inches. The salmon cats were about 8-9 inches aswell.

I wish you all the best of luck... :)

HP.SA. You may need to remove the oscar from the tank, change the tank around, add new fish and then add the oscar back to the aquarium.
 
Silver dollars may be a good choice also, I was thinking alone the lines of bottom feeder. I really like the Jaguar catfish, and I'd love to get one, I just need to do more research on it first. Thanks for all the help so far.
 
Just an interesting bit of trivia here.....a Pacu is not a cichlid....it's actually a member of the Characin family as is the Pirahna.....yep, a monga tetra......just trivia, no signif.

Good luck with your oscar.
 
crazyred said:
Just an interesting bit of trivia here.....a Pacu is not a cichlid....it's actually a member of the Characin family as is the Pirahna.....yep, a monga tetra......just trivia, no signif.

Good luck with your oscar.

HAHA, sorry about that. I wasn't intending that I was saying that a Pacu was a member of the cichild family. Even though it did seem that's what I was stating. I meant "A pacu might be cool. Another cichlid though isn't what I want", referring to the mention of a jack dempsey. Thanks for the info though.
 
Oh, sorry about that, my bad, I misread the post. :)

I thought a pacu was a cichlid until recently......boy was I surprised to find out different.

I hope you find some fishies to safely go with your oscar!
 
I wouldnt advise you getting any more fish without knowing how big your tank is.

and Pacu? If you have 600+ gallons to play with then I would still advise you not to get one, it will eventually kill your oscar.
 
My tank is 55 gallons. I don't want to get anything huge, because I'd need a larger tank. But also not too small, because my oscar will eat it.

As far as the Pacu.
Pacu = Pirahna = Kill's cows for fun.... so, no, I wouldn't get one anyways
 
ahh the Pacu wouldn't kill it to eat it, it would kill it to get it out of it's territory (wich is HUGE)

its almost universal advice that the miniumum tank for a Oscar is 75 gallons (alone, one fish) and your Oscar is already big enough to fill your tank to capasity IMHO if not over. So I wouldnt think about getting tankmates untill you move up to something at least 90-125 gallons.
 
The "minimum" tank size for an oscar fluxuates within peoples opinions' so quickly that's it hard to tell. If there's one thing that fish people can't agree on, it's tank sizes for fish. I've been told that the minimum size for an oscar was anywhere from 30-200 gallons. Yes, 30 is too small in my opinion, but from lots of reading I've been doing, I believe that 55 is min. Even though I really wish I had a 90-125 gallon. But when it's all said and done, I think the true minimum for a fish is no tank at all, no fish was really designed to live in a glass box anyways. The bigger the living area, the happier the fish.
 
Uhh.. start a new thread and ask.. or just search here.. the advice is 75 gallons. :p

IME Oscars do not live as long or reach close to there full size in 55 gallon tanks.
 
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