Restocking...Oscar alternative?

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Lydia

Aquarium Advice Regular
Joined
Oct 5, 2011
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Hi everyone. I have a 55 gal freshwater tank. I currently have no electricity and lost it Saturday night. It is now Wednesday and I still have no power. With no power I have no heat and my house has been a steady 40-45 degrees since saturday.
Needless to say, all of my fish have passed away. I am very crushed about this. I did all that I could, every hour or so I would oxygenate the water and I used the last of the hot water we had to try to keep temp livable and still, they didn't make it. I had quite the cast too. Mystis cat, African butterfly, parrot cichlid, poly seradontis, coulmbian zebra pleco, two big angels.....I am not a happy camper right now.
The only way I can stand to think about it is to think of all the cool fish out there that we couldn't get because our tank was at capacity. My fiancé always liked oscars and now that we are starting anew I figured after we get a generator(!!) we could pick out one or maybe two fish after the tank has cycled. I kinda fell for the blood parrot cichlid but after his tragic death I couldn't get another. Anything similar to these kinds of fish that we haven't come across? We are still fairly new to fish keeping, but I do my research too so I'm not a complete bonehead! :-/ thanks guys in advance!
 
Moved to FW and Brackish- General Discussion. This should help to get you more replies.

Welcome to the forum, and I'm sorry to hear that you lost your fish. I personally wouldn't advise an oscar for a 55 gallon due to their massive potential size, but some will disagree with me on that. If it were my tank, I would choose smaller cichlids like keyholes, rainbows, festivums, or maybe more angels. That will allow you to keep multiple species together even though you don't have a huge tank to work with, and you can add some smaller bottom dwellers and pretty schooling fish.
 
+1 for severum. Oscar's should get at least 75g+. Oscar's easily reach over 13" and at that size they are bigger than the width of the tank.


If you want another solo "big" fish you could get a Jack Dempsey, Green Terror or Severum. But remember that when you stock these fish, you don't get others. For example, your tank had way too much for 55g. That Oscar as he grew would of killed most of what's in it.

If you want multiple aggressives / semi's you could do convicts or firemouths

If you want a community you could do a lot of peaceful smaller fish.

What would you like to do? We can give more examples, but there's a lot of fish!
 
Hi! And thanks for the move! Lol. I have never had an Oscar. My fiancé and I got this tank with a few smaller community fish in it and everytime we went to the pet sore he wanted to get the Oscar although knowing we couldn't. I know that a 55gal is not recommended for oscars and even if it might be ok I still don't want to cause any discomfort to the fish.
We had a community tank before and I think one or two bigger fish would be better for us this time. I loved the personality of my parrot fish. He came right up to the glass when i walked by. I don't want to get another one tho cause I am still upset with the fact that they a died and I dont want to be reminded of it. That is another reason why I think one or two bigger fish wpuld be better. The tank will have a whole new feel. I am even getting new gravel so the tank looks different.
So anyways, what kind of fish would be ok in a 55 with maybe one buddy. I like bigger fish as they are impressive an I like to watch them grow. I have heard of the jack demsey but have not researched them. But something along those lines. What are some of your favs/ what would you get? There are so many kinds of fish I don't even know where to start researching. Thanks again for all your help.
 
If you got a Jack dempsey, you could finish off the stocking with a group of tough dither fish- giant danios, diamond tetras, tiger barbs come to mind right off the bat. The JD is a personable fish but does grow fairly large so I would not keep other cichlids with it in a 55.
 
Do ypu think one jd and one other fish of similar size would be pushing it?
 
In a 55 gallon, I do think so. But that is JMO. You could add a bristlenose pleco or a pleco of similar size, if you like.
 
Aw thats terrible! Is there no place you could have taken the fish when the power went out?
 
Nope. The whole area was out of power. By the time anyone, including lfs, got power they were already dead. It is sad :-(
 
They might of had generators running I don't know if they lost them all but they were closed and all of mine were dead before they got power back.
 
We just got power back yesterday. Now everytime I walk by my empty tank I am sad. :-( what are some other fish similar to a jd or a green terror?
 
I just tried to do some researching and had very little luck. But let me rephrase my initial question. What would be a good pair of fish for a 55 gal, that would be the only two fish in the tank (besides a pleco of some kind. Prob a smaller species) that have a personality and are impressive looking. Color is good but not mandatory if the personality of the fish is prominent. please help! My empty tank is killing me!!!!
 
that was bad to have all your stock wiped out like that. i think that if your area is prone to power outages you might want to consider coldwater fish instead.
 
I just tried to do some researching and had very little luck. But let me rephrase my initial question. What would be a good pair of fish for a 55 gal, that would be the only two fish in the tank (besides a pleco of some kind. Prob a smaller species) that have a personality and are impressive looking. Color is good but not mandatory if the personality of the fish is prominent. please help! My empty tank is killing me!!!!

To keep in pairs:
Firemouths, rainbow cichlids, keyholes, festivums, angels, sajica (T bar), cutteri immediately come to mind. FM, sajica, cutteri I would keep with no other cichlids. The others are more peaceful and you may be able to get away with 2 pair; for example, a pair of angels and a pair of keyholes with a small pleco should be fine.
 
Get an angel tank! Make it heavily planted, with lots of room at the top for swimming!! It would look great! They are very colerful and mine has TONS of personality! Haha you could put quite a few angels in there.. But bot too many
 
No Angels for me. RIP Harvey and NaNe
Harvey is the koi angel. The were both pretty big when everyone died.
 

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severum mama said:
It has already been explained that they died due to a power outage and subsequent temperature drop. ;)

My power went off this morning, luckily it was just under an hour before it came back and the little neons didn't seem to mind an extra hour of dark to sleep lol :)
 
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