Last ditch effort to save my fish!!

[ashleynicole]

I'm not a fan of parrots, something about them I don't like.

How big do they get and why do you feel about them the way you do?

Parrots get about 6-8 inches full grown. Some people keep them in groups but they tend to have individual personalities. Some can be very mild some can be much more "pushy". But since their mouths dont fully close they cant really nip or bite but they will eat things small enough to fit in their mouths.


They need a lot of caves and love to dig.


They are hybrids, not genetically modified like glofish. They are a cossbreed between some sorts of cichlids. Controversy arose with these because some are died like the blue ones and the dye fades. I do not agree with this at all. Some countries have even "tattooed" them which I think is also horrible.

The natural ones are red though juveniles dont have as much color... They develope color as they grow.


To put things in perspective... a mule is a cross of a horse and a donkey... and they are sterile.

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[mikem691]

Please don't listen to this. This is horrible advice. It won't take a couple of years.. It will take a couple of months. Oscars grow fasssst. An inch a month at least. Your bio load is huge already for that tank. And a 25% water change is a waste of time. You need to watch your nitrates and when they hit 20ppm you do a 50% water change.

I agree with this and also parrots are a cross between red devils and gold severums. When cared for properly and in a proper size tank will reach 12".

 

[ashleynicole]

I agree with this and also parrots are a cross between red devils and gold severums. When cared for properly and in a proper size tank will reach 12".

Ive never seen a foot long parrot. Live aquaria says 8"
http://www.liveaquaria.com/product/prod_display.cfm?c=830+889+1599&pcatid=1599




Heres another reference as well.

"Size and Growth

6 - 9" (15 - 24cm) Blood Parrots grow slow when compared to other Central American Cichlids or Flowerhorn. Once they hit 4-5" their growth slows further. They typically can live anywhere from 5 - 15 years depending on the care given to them and other genetic factors. When Blood Parrots are small they may show a tan/brown body color with black spots near the tail. These are simply juveniles that should change to orange/yellow as they grow."




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[gilpi]

Please don't listen to this. This is horrible advice. It won't take a couple of years.. It will take a couple of months. Oscars grow fasssst. An inch a month at least. Your bio load is huge already for that tank. And a 25% water change is a waste of time. You need to watch your nitrates and when they hit 20ppm you do a 50% water change.

Wow aren't we a little uptight!

How can four small 2 inch fish be a "huge" bio load on a 55 gallon?
25% water change is a waste of time? This is good advice?
Wow!
Now, I don't doubt that at some point later on it will be a huge bio load and I can turn around and say 50% water change is a waste of time!
You should do 75%

You're right about Oscars growing fast, an inch a month would be under optimal conditions so perhaps my calculation of two years was a little off but I did recommend the OP that eventually they would have to re-home them, does that work with you?

Funny thing is that my advice other than the timing is not that much different than yours but change things around a little bit and I give "horrible advice"?

You know, I had originally told the OP to relax... I take that back, I think you need to relax.

 

[gilpi]

Parrots get about 6-8 inches full grown. Some people keep them in groups but they tend to have individual personalities. Some can be very mild some can be much more "pushy". But since their mouths dont fully close they cant really nip or bite but they will eat things small enough to fit in their mouths.


They need a lot of caves and love to dig.


They are hybrids, not genetically modified like glofish. They are a cossbreed between some sorts of cichlids. Controversy arose with these because some are died like the blue ones and the dye fades. I do not agree with this at all. Some countries have even "tattooed" them which I think is also horrible.


The natural ones are red though juveniles dont have as much color... They develope color as they grow.


To put things in perspective... a mule is a cross of a horse and a donkey... and they are sterile.

Sent from my SPH-L710 using Aquarium Advice mobile app

I was never attracted to parrot fish so that's why I ignored them. Recently I have seen sort of a disclaimer in one of my local stores, they're being sold as ... "Painted Parrot Fish" I mean really, a blue parrot fish?!

So how do they breed if they're sterile? At least mules are put to work.

 

[ashleynicole]

Wow aren't we a little uptight!

How can four small 2 inch fish be a "huge" bio load on a 55 gallon?
25% water change is a waste of time? This is good advice?
Wow!
Now, I don't doubt that at some point later on it will be a huge bio load and I can turn around and say 50% water change is a waste of time!
You should do 75%

Oscars produce a lot of waste... even when they are small, and grow quickly. They will reach 6 inches in about 3 months if they are 2 inches now and will become vert aggressive towards the parrots who won't be able to fight back.

And in the case of the op, a 25 percent water change is a waste of time. With nitrates at 60-80ppm a 25 percent water change isn't going to make much of a difference. Back to back 50percent water changes will be needed. One will get you down to 40, a second down to 20. And then a 3rd down to 10. A water change needs to be done any time nitrates reaches 20ppm.


With a new tank,Test your water daily and whenever they get to 20 you know you need to do a 50percent water change to get them back down to 10. If they raise to more than 20 in less than a week you will need to do water changes more often.

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[Jmunroe]

Wow aren't we a little uptight!

How can four small 2 inch fish be a "huge" bio load on a 55 gallon?
25% water change is a waste of time? This is good advice?
Wow!
Now, I don't doubt that at some point later on it will be a huge bio load and I can turn around and say 50% water change is a waste of time!
You should do 75%

You're right about Oscars growing fast, an inch a month would be under optimal conditions so perhaps my calculation of two years was a little off but I did recommend the OP that eventually they would have to re-home them, does that work with you?

Funny thing is that my advice other than the timing is not that much different than yours but change things around a little bit and I give "horrible advice"?

You know, I had originally told the OP to relax... I take that back, I think you need to relax.

Those 2 inch fish eat a lot and make a lot of waste. Oscars that small need to be fed a few times a day at least until they are around 5 inches. This makes a lot of bio load. If your gonna do 25% do 50 and don't waste your time. You can never change enough water in a large messy cichlid tank. You have bad advice, I corrected.

 

[flitabout]

Wow aren't we a little uptight!

How can four small 2 inch fish be a "huge" bio load on a 55 gallon?
25% water change is a waste of time? This is good advice?
Wow!
Now, I don't doubt that at some point later on it will be a huge bio load and I can turn around and say 50% water change is a waste of time!
You should do 75%

You're right about Oscars growing fast, an inch a month would be under optimal conditions so perhaps my calculation of two years was a little off but I did recommend the OP that eventually they would have to re-home them, does that work with you?

Funny thing is that my advice other than the timing is not that much different than yours but change things around a little bit and I give "horrible advice"?

You know, I had originally told the OP to relax... I take that back, I think you need to relax.

He's right I had to do 2 50% water changes on my 55 every week to keep the water safe for my Oscar. In 4 months he had grown to 8in. I realized at that point what I thought was a big tank wasn't even close to being big enough. It took me 2 more months to find some body that would take him and by then he was a full 12in long! He couldn't hardly even turn around in that tank. Now back to the water changes if you are going to do a 25% change every other day that might work but not once every week or two. That isn't near enough! There are other toxins in the water that we just can't measure for that build up not to mention that nitrates that would build up on a fish as big and dirty as an Oscar. Doing anything less than a 50% is pointless. It just doesn't get enough of the toxins out. Good pure water conditions = big healthy fish.

 

[gilpi]

Those 2 inch fish eat a lot and make a lot of waste. Oscars that small need to be fed a few times a day at least until they are around 5 inches. This makes a lot of bio load. If your gonna do 25% do 50 and don't waste your time. You can never change enough water in a large messy cichlid tank. You have bad advice, I corrected.

I know that we at least have one thing in common and I'm sure we are trying to convey the best advice we can based on what we know.

We can choose to be as anal as we want with fishkeeping, that's fine, it's our choice. I don't copy and paste anything, I write here what I have experienced throughout the many years of fishkeeping, there is no need to become a scientist or obsess over water parameters.

Back to Oscars, these are tough fish that can tolerate many types of water conditions, I have cycled many tanks with them, no I don't recommend anyone to do that unless they're willing to change some water every other day, every single Oscar I had has survived to overgrow at least a 30 gallon tank in no time. I'm also not recommending to drive nitrates to a point where it would be toxic to the fish, btw I have only kept one oscar alone per tank, it just works better that way unless you have a huge tank.

Oscars don't need to be constantly fed, a good feeding 2-3 times a day when very small to one maybe two once they grow, unless you want to keep changing water on a daily basis, common sense plays a part on this as well and how much one feeds them is as important. Oscars "should" grow 7 to 10 inches more or less in one year, anything less they are most likely underfed which is detrimental to the fish since it can stunt their growth. So at the moment 4 two inch fish in a 55 gallon should not be a problem providing maintenance is done and not overfed. My point is that there is balance to be kept.

I would personally keep only the two Oscars for now, but I'm biased, till the time comes to rehome them and even then you might not be able to keep them both in the same tank due to comparability issues, you'll have enough time to figure it all out I'm sure.

 

[gilpi]

He's right I had to do 2 50% water changes on my 55 every week to keep the water safe for my Oscar. In 4 months he had grown to 8in. I realized at that point what I thought was a big tank wasn't even close to being big enough. It took me 2 more months to find some body that would take him and by then he was a full 12in long! He couldn't hardly even turn around in that tank. Now back to the water changes if you are going to do a 25% change every other day that might work but not once every week or two. That isn't near enough! There are other toxins in the water that we just can't measure for that build up not to mention that nitrates that would build up on a fish as big and dirty as an Oscar. Doing anything less than a 50% is pointless. It just doesn't get enough of the toxins out. Good pure water conditions = big healthy fish.

I know they are messy eaters but I personally feel if you have to do that many water changes a week, either your fish was way too big for your tank or you were over feeding.

 

[flitabout]

He was in a 55 and I guarantee I overfed him. How else do you think he got to be 12 in by the time he was 8 months old? He was totally not limited in his food consumption. When he was little and would take them I feed him pellet 3 times a day. When he was older he got guppies that I bred for him. The only thing he was limited by was his tank which was not big enough by half. So yes I had to do those water change. But he was a big healthy beast of a fish when I had to give him up.

 

[gilpi]

He was in a 55 and I guarantee I overfed him. How else do you think he got to be 12 in by the time he was 8 months old? He was totally not limited in his food consumption. When he was little and would take them I feed him pellet 3 times a day. When he was older he got guppies that I bred for him. The only thing he was limited by was his tank which was not big enough by half. So yes I had to do those water change. But he was a big healthy beast of a fish when I had to give him up.

Wow that's pretty amazing, a foot in less than a year! I guess that would be the only way to grow them that big, feed the heck out of them. I'm actually doing something similar with a bunch of small discus I have, been power feeding them, hate to use the term over feeding and it's work since I change some water almost daily but it's paying off, they are growing at a nice rate.
All this talk about Oscars makes me want to go and get one!

 

[Jmunroe]

I know they are messy eaters but I personally feel if you have to do that many water changes a week, either your fish was way too big for your tank or you were over feeding.

This is what it takes to keep an oscar healthy in a 55 gallon. And yes the fish are too big for a 55. Even if you didn't feed it for a week the nitrates would still be high enough to need it. They make ammonia with breathing as well as food in/food out. An adult oscar that is a year or more should be fed once every 2 days. They get fatty liver disease if fed too much. They take 3 days to digest food(as most fish do) and should be fed some peas or other greens once a week to help digestion. They should receive weekly dose of vitamin soaked food with something such as boyds vita chem as well. The most important being vitamin c (ascorbic acid). But a lot of people keep them the way you have, to small of a tank, fed it too much, didn't do enough water changes, but thought it was all ok because the fish was still alive. They just don't realize how much actually needs to go into keeping them healthy.

 

[Jmunroe]

That's why I correct info on them when I know it's not the best for the fish

 

[gilpi]

This is what it takes to keep an oscar healthy in a 55 gallon. And yes the fish are too big for a 55. Even if you didn't feed it for a week the nitrates would still be high enough to need it. They make ammonia with breathing as well as food in/food out. An adult oscar that is a year or more should be fed once every 2 days. They get fatty liver disease if fed too much. They take 3 days to digest food(as most fish do) and should be fed some peas or other greens once a week to help digestion. They should receive weekly dose of vitamin soaked food with something such as boyds vita chem as well. The most important being vitamin c (ascorbic acid). But a lot of people keep them the way you have, to small of a tank, fed it too much, didn't do enough water changes, but thought it was all ok because the fish was still alive. They just don't realize how much actually needs to go into keeping them healthy.

Great information.

 

[Candi1990]

Yes!!!! Very good info! It hurt me to take the little albino oscar back, and the guy there tried yo convince me he would be ok. I just couldnt do it. Maybe one day i can get a 200 gal and someone to see to it for me! Then i van get an oscar!