Ironside

Your tank is only big enough for one Oscar. Remember that Oscars do grow to quite large sizes. You don't just have to think about polluting the water, you also have to think about how much room they have got to move around them. Oscars sometimes do have a mad five minutes, they can really hurt themselves if they swim against the side of the tank. Confining them in a small tank, could cause some serious problems. I have got two Oscars in a 125 gallon UK tank and they are already starting to look a little too big for it.

There are a few things that you have to take into account with oscar Fry. Firstly, do you want to keep the Oscars? If so, you're going to need a huge tank because you're going to have quite a few babies. Obviously this is probably not an option so you might want to sell them. Have you got someone to sell them to? Oscar Fry will not tolerate bad water, so you will have to keep on top of that. Cichlid are very good parents and will protect their Fry in their mouths. Don't expect them to be loving parents for too long though. Once those Oscars are capable of being independent, they will become potential food. Anyway, just a few things for you to think about

Thank you for that kind reception. As for getting small clown Loaches, I am sure my 11 inch Oscars would love that. These snails are just a pest. The problem is, they are getting into my filters. I'm not sure if it's a snails causing the problem, but my filters have been acting very strange lately. I gave them a clean the other day and they were working perfectly okay. By the way, I have got two eheim 2329's. They normally take around a minute to fill and empty. What is happening now is that every day, they are taking longer in between filling and emptying. I can understand if they were absolutely clogged up inside, but they are not. I am just wondering if it has got something to do with the snails. Has anybody else had this sort of problem with their filters.

Oscars are susceptible to hole in the head disease so you must keep the water in good condition. This means regular water changes. The smaller the tank you have, the quicker the water will become polluted. This will result in new having to carry out a lot more maintenance on the tank. You also need a big tank because these fish get big, really big. They can easily reach 14 or 15 inches, sometimes more.

I feel somewhat out of place amongst all you Kiwi's :-) Anyway, my Oscar tank is infested with Malaysian trumpet snails. They are absolutely horrible, they get everywhere, in your filters, all over the glass, in the gravel, you name it, you will find them. I even went out and bought two huge clown Loaches which cost me a small fortune. I have seen them with snails in their mouth a couple of times, but they haven't really made a difference to the population. These snails are absolutely unbelievable, they breed like rabbits. Unfortunately I haven't been able to find a solution to get rid of them. If anyone has got any ideas, please do enlighten me.