Advice on Oscar tank size, please

[Jacky12]

More I read the more I see 10-20 years, higher numbers due to optimum care & water conditions. This he shall have.

 

[Colin_T]

The problem is you don't know whether the fish has been kept in optimum conditions until now. If the fish was kept in a dirty tank previously, it may impact on the overall life span.

 

[Jacky12]

What I do know is the likelihood is extremely high this fish will do better with me than most new owners.

 

[Jacky12]

oh, silly me! just remembered I have a 56 G in the closet. Goofy colors due to grow lamps when i had orchids. Much better dimensions on this 56 than the 40 breeder for the old Oscar if i get him tomorrow

 

[m.j.gomez]

What I do know is the likelihood is extremely high this fish will do better with me than most new owners.

Hello, I personally would take the oscar even though he may only have a few yrs left. I think you will also benefit from the experience. At least he'll have a chance at a longer healthier lifespan.

 

[Jacky12]

Awwww
So sweet of you to say.


He would only be in the 56 G for a few days. The husband thinks he can reinforce under the floor & reduce the height by Monday. He has Monday off. The stand is 39” vs the standard 30”. We need room above the tank to mount a big TV on the wall.

 

[m.j.gomez]

Awwww

So sweet of you to say.





He would only be in the 56 G for a few days. The husband thinks he can reinforce under the floor & reduce the height by Monday. He has Monday off. The stand is 39” vs the standard 30”. We need room above the tank to mount a big TV on the wall.

A Oscar cichlid that sz will jump. Be sure to have some type of lid. Also i use a sports fishing net to move. Tried a colander once & got stuck by dorsal spikes.

 

[Jacky12]

Oooh, great suggestion on the net. Def buying one tomorrow. The tank has a glass lid. I will weight it down. I have used pitchers, quart sized measuring cups etc to scoop out fish & axotles, nothing as large as this guy. The fishing net will be the best, given his size. I will be transporting him in a 12.5 G Coleman Cooler. I will observe how the owner pulls him from the tank.

You think I can kinda pour him from the cooler into the tank? I’ve done this with 5 gallon buckets of smaller fish. But the cooler is heavier & bulkier, so maybe that’s a bad idea? Probably best to be safe with the net, huh.

THANKS!

 

[Colin_T]

Don't try to pour big fish into tanks, it never goes well. You can pour big fish into ponds but not tanks. Get him home, acclimatise him by adding tank water to his esky. Then net him out and put him in the tank.

Try to have the esky aerated while the fish is in it. You can buy battery powered air pumps and use them without an airstone to aerate the water. If you are using a normal air pump that runs off a power socket, you can use an airstone. The battery pumps tend to struggle with airstones unless you use the multi-coloured plastic airstones that can be taken apart and cleaned. These usually have a small weight in them to hold them down.

If you are going to get him tomorrow, call the guy and ask him not to feed the fish today or tomorrow. Then the fish will have an empty stomach and intestine and be less likely to throw up in the esky, and it will produce less ammonia during the trip. The day after you get the fish, you can offer it some food but it might not eat because they sulk when moved.

 

[m.j.gomez]

Oooh, great suggestion on the net. Def buying one tomorrow. The tank has a glass lid. I will weight it down. I have used pitchers, quart sized measuring cups etc to scoop out fish & axotles, nothing as large as this guy. The fishing net will be the best, given his size. I will be transporting him in a 12.5 G Coleman Cooler. I will observe how the owner pulls him from the tank.

You think I can kinda pour him from the cooler into the tank? I’ve done this with 5 gallon buckets of smaller fish. But the cooler is heavier & bulkier, so maybe that’s a bad idea? Probably best to be safe with the net, huh.

THANKS!

May I suggest a small meshing on net. I originally had a large mesh but switched to small because worried about damaging eyes of oscar. They protrude more than other fish.

 

[Jacky12]

Oh! Thanks so much for the tip! I was looking online last night at nets available at the Walmart a few miles from my house. The instock choices were overwhelming & many more available for shipping. If I can’t find one like yours, I’ll go a sporting goods store.

 

[Jacky12]

Thanks, Colin. I googled to learn Esky is an Australian brand of Coleman Coolers. The guy will be filling my cooler with his tank water. I will have newly conditioned water in the 56 G tank that he has to live in for a few days before going to a 125 G.

So I fill the 12.5 cooler with my tank water and then move Oscar? Is this done in one fell swoop or incrementally?

As to calling him, I have only Facebook messaging to contact him. He’s been difficult since the get go & it’s been 2 weeks. He posted 4 videos & several stills and said he needed to get rid of the fish to set up a SW tank & to PM him. He did not respond to my PMs or those of my buddy in this same local group who wants the gar. He added another post saying the Oscar is uniquely sociable & he is reluctant to part with it. Fair enough, but he should have taken down his posts & responded to our PMs.

Then he finally PM’d me. He gave me his address & said he will PM me at noon Friday. I thanked him & wished him a Happy Thanksgiving. Says he: Didn’t I just tell you to stop PM’ing me? Lolololo. Well, that’s not exactly what he said. I only sent 4, as did my buddy after the gar. The owner opened none of the PM’s except one of mine before saying he’ll PM today at noon.

It would not surprise me one bit if he changes his mind. Too bad he didn’t know it before posting all those videos & stills for 2 weeks.

 

[Colin_T]

Thanks, Colin. I googled to learn Esky is an Australian brand of Coleman Coolers. The guy will be filling my cooler with his tank water. I will have newly conditioned water in the 56 G tank that he has to live in for a few days before going to a 125 G.

So I fill the 12.5 cooler with my tank water and then move Oscar? Is this done in one fell swoop or incrementally?

Officially an esky in Australia is simply any insulated container used to keep beer and other food and drinks cold while you're outside. If you walk into a shop and say where are the eskies, they point you to the isle with them in and you can choose from dozens of different brands. One yobbo (Google that) made a ride on esky so he could have his cold beer while riding around the neighbourhood. It actually caught on and you can buy ride on eskies.

Back on topic. When you get the fish home, add some tank water to the esky with the fish in, a couple of litres (1/2 gallon) at a time. Wait 5-10 minutes between adding water. Do this until you have doubled the water volume in the esky, wait another 5-10 minutes, then net the fish out and put it in the tank.

You should also check the pH, GH and KH of the water with the Oscar and see if you can get the tank pH as close to the Oscar water pH. If you can get the GH similar, that would help as well but definitely try and get the pH of the tank close to the pH of the Oscar water.

 

[Jacky12]

You’re saying down under they drink & drive? You’d get a massive ticket for that here & maybe worse, as in being hauled off to jail. jobbo = cracker = redneck (American slang)

I’ve always regretting not taking params when I got my first 90 G, an established 5 year old tank with 20 cichlids/catfish. The guy used his well water & never conditioned it. So appreciative you reminded me to check all now.

I just fished out my GH, KH drops & Ph meter. I have the API Ph drops too. I’m seeing readily available API Ph Up and Ph Down products. Are these good? I forgot how to adjust KH & GH, my water was always within the acceptable range for my fish.

Can you recommend good ways to adjust the GH if it’s off?

 

[Colin_T]

pH up is usually sodium bicarbonate, available from any supermarket for a dollar a box.
pH down is usually sodium biphosphate, not sure where to get that from.

If you need to raise the KH, then sodium bicarbonate is the cheapest option, or you can look for calcium carbonate, available at marine shops but much more expensive.

If you need to raise the GH, then get some Rift Lake water conditioner available from pet shops and add a small amount of that.

If you do need to raise the pH, GH or KH, try to do it 24 hours before using the water. The minerals need time to completely dissolve and mix with the water. If you can't do that, at least let it aerate vigorously for 30 minutes (or more) to try and get every dissolved, but if you do this, aim for a lower level because some of the minerals will continue to dissolve over the next few hours.

 

[Andy Sager]

More I read the more I see 10-20 years, higher numbers due to optimum care & water conditions. This he shall have.

As Colin mentioned, lifespan is not determined by now until then but from the beginning until now. The rest of it's life may have nothing to do with how well you take care of it.
As for the difference between 10-20 years, more natural fish will have longer lifespans than the ones that have been genetically manipulated unless they were manipulated for longevity. All these color variations tend to have shorter lifespans from all that I've read. If you want a 20 year old Oscar, get a wild one and raise it from a baby in the best conditions possible.

Moving large fish to new surrounding is always a chance they will not take the switch well. Just be prepared.

 

[Jacky12]

We do not know the care of Pink Oscar from the beginning to now. That’s an unknown. I do know this fish will receive the best possible care until death do us part. I tried very hard today to convince the owner to keep him, since he’s very attached. I showed him the pic of my $200 125 G with the ugly stand and all the upscale equipment. He said he doesn’t have the space and wants SW. Pink (my name for him/her) is destined for a new home & best it’s mine. There are some real dunces in the local Facebook group that wanted her. One already had 4 Oscar’s, 3 severums & other smaller cichlids in a 90 G four feet long tank. Equally bad situations. I am putting together a 125 G explicitly for Pink. The husband worked on support 4x4 posts today & the tank will be running sometime Monday.

Hopefully I can benefit from Colin’s acclimation info & ongoing advice from y’all.

Here’s an issue that’s greatly troubling me. Pink is used to 12 feeders a week, large sinking pellets, & being hand fed Jumbomin sticks. Guys, I can’t do live feeding. Is there another way?

 

[Andy Sager]

We do not know the care of Pink Oscar from the beginning to now. That’s an unknown. I do know this fish will receive the best possible care until death do us part. I tried very hard today to convince the owner to keep him, since he’s very attached. I showed him the pic of my $200 125 G with the ugly stand and all the upscale equipment. He said he doesn’t have the space and wants SW. Pink (my name for him/her) is destined for a new home & best it’s mine. There are some real dunces in the local Facebook group that wanted her. One already had 4 Oscar’s, 3 severums & other smaller cichlids in a 90 G four feet long tank. Equally bad situations. I am putting together a 125 G explicitly for Pink. The husband worked on support 4x4 posts today & the tank will be running sometime Monday.

Hopefully I can benefit from Colin’s acclimation info & ongoing advice from y’all.

Here’s an issue that’s greatly troubling me. Pink is used to 12 feeders a week, large sinking pellets, & being hand fed Jumbomin sticks. Guys, I can’t do live feeding. Is there another way?

See if it will eat Frozen fish like silversides. ( Thawed out first. ) You also want to get some roughage into the fish so along with the pellets and sticks, try some frozen prawn ( also thawed first. )

 

[Jacky12]

I have never heard of Silverslides, will google. Shrimps/prawns were the first alternative that came to mind. I think mj Gomez mentioned feeding dojos cooked shrimp & chicken, not positive if it was him, but someone here who knows fish keeping.

By roughage do you mean vegetables? How about thawed peas & carrots?

 

[Andy Sager]

I have never heard of Silverslides, will google. Shrimps/prawns were the first alternative that came to mind. I think mj Gomez mentioned feeding dojos cooked shrimp & chicken, not positive if it was him, but someone here who knows fish keeping.

By roughage do you mean vegetables? How about thawed peas & carrots?

Veggies are roughage the same as the shells of shrimps and prawns are roughage. Oscars may not eat peas and carrots. Larger fish usually eat fish that eat vegetation so they get it through their foods. By not feeding the live feeders, you are eliminating the roughage, via scales and bones, the fish is probably getting now.
As for feeding cooked foods, I'm not a fan of that method because of what it's cooked in. The fish shouldn't need cooked foods. Mine ate earthworms, bugs ( crickets, mealworms, cockroaches) , lizards, fish, shrimp ( not mysid shrimp since their shells are less developed), Plankton ( larger shrimp species).. the list goes on. Not a veggie in sight and yet plenty of poopage. LOL