Catfish for an oscar

[skorpio94]

Hi all, am looking into maybe getting a catfish or 2 for my oscar tank (just 1 white oscar on his own). I like the pictus catfish but would like to know if anyone has had any success with this.. (Should also add that its a 250 liter tank with an eheim external canister filter and also an internal filter in there aswell. Thanks

 

[King Fisher]

I don't see why it wouldn't work. I've kept Cichlids with a pictus catfish with no issues

 

[skorpio94]

I don't see why it wouldn't work. I've kept Cichlids with a pictus catfish with no issues

Might have go give it a try then and see how it goes, the oscar is around 9 inches so id have to try look for a decent size pictus as to not get eaten

 

[King Fisher]

Ya as long as he's around 3 inches I don't see it being a problem. They have fight in them.

 

[skorpio94]

Great, thanks for speedy response! Hopefully all goes well lol

 

[Aski247]

Pictus are a schooling cat, and get up around 10”. I personally wouldn’t do them for a 4’ tank.

Raphael, eclipse, Jaguar, synodontis, are all better options imo. Provided none of them can fit in the O’s mouth at the time of adding them.

 

[King Fisher]

Pictus do not get 10 inches......Unless you got them on steroids. Lol

 

[Aski247]

Pictus do not get 10 inches......Unless you got them on steroids. Lol

6-10” ?* I used 10 as a max but still. Besides the bio load of a school of them plus the Oscar you will still have 5+ 6” fish in a 4’ tank with a 12” poop machine.

 

[King Fisher]

I've never seen one get over 6 inches....more around 5. There is a small spot pictus that gets big but is not common in the trade. The large spot pictus that is common gets 5-6 inches.

Pictus shoal together by nature and a group of at least 3 is recommended but IME they can be kept by themselves. It might not be a popular thing to do but I've never seen adverse effects from them being kept by themselves.

50% water changes every week with a gravel vac and a filtration system with 12 to 15x tank turnover would be my recommendation. I'd also run two filtration systems for more BB accumulation. It's doable IMO.