Doc Holiday

One good feed once a day should be plenty. It depends on the others cleaning up behind the oscar. I feed my oscars an extra feed the other day and he had eaten too much that he ended up sinking to the bottom for a couple of hours. But if they are happy and youv'e got the time to feed them that often then I don't see why not

Most tank mates for an Oscar are found by trial and error, as each oscar has it's own personality. It won't usually like it's new tank mates, it depends on wether he decides to let him be or not. It helps if you get something slighty bigger than him for a start and he will generally leave them alone, unless they get in his way of course.

I beg to differ! Guppy's are huge and easy breeders, it's not uncommon for oscar owners to have a guppy breeding tank to spawn live food for the Oscars. Sounds like a plan I might have to try it. 8)

I am in a situation that after running the aquarium for about two months, there is alot of carbon dust from the ceramic noodles in the water. How do I get rid of this with out cleaning out the noodles and filter system and losing my bacteria colony? :-?

I can completely understand not naming schooling fish unless there was a specific personality amongst them. We don't have any schooling fish as yet but I'm sure we will be in the same vote when we do.

If you have children, then no doubt the fish will be given names. If you have more than one of a particular species then you name them for identification. Every fish in our house is a pet and they are all individually named. Our son has named the fish and there seems to be a theme behind it, for example: our Red Oscars are named Grover and Elmo, our 2 Clown loaches are named Bert and Ernie, our pleco is named Oscar (very confusing with the Oscars in the tank) I think it's quite cool having this whole seasame street thing going on, with a couple of exceptions like our Texas Cichlid being named Tex and our Golden gourami named Hannah (our son wanted our baby to be called Hannah, so he called our fish that instead) Naming the fish is an individual thing, it depends wether you class them as pets or just another piece of furniture. If you have five cats do you name them? or are they just another piece of furniture too? Just my point of view. 8)

I was wondering if anybody has had trouble with this before. I'm unsure if it is because he is gorging himself at feeding time or if it is to do with his diet. If you have any suggestions i'd love to hear them.

I'd agree with midas! they definately look like flier cichlids to me. 8)

The general rule for keeping oscars is that each one needs about 200L to it's self (55 US Gallons), the average 4 foot tank holds around 250L. So if you want tp give him some tank mates then I would suggest a 5 or 6 foot tank that should be sufficient for him and a few mates! It is also advisable to extra filtration due to their messy nature. ( My oscar was racing around the tank last night with a block of frozen bloodworms just about as big as he is, so the others wouldn't get any, god he makes you laugh) :lol:

Went to Redwood in the weekend and had a look, the ornate bichir is a pretty awesome looking fish. So was the red Oscar that I just couldn't leave behind.

Thanks guys, glad to know there are other fishnuts in Ashburton. I'll have to catch up with you guys sometime.

Thank you for clearing that up, I'm heading out to Redwood Aquatics this weekend so I will take a look then!! Have you been into Organisms on the corner of clyde and ilam roads? great service awesome healthy fish..

We have plans on getting a rather large aquarium in the near future 600 - 750L the 100L tank will become a kind of holding tank for the fish to grow large enough to be added to the bigger tank with the larger fish. I Hope to start breeding the odd few and I have a 40L tank to be used as a hospis tank or holding tank for any fry that are born to prevent them from being eaten. 8)

Tis mighty nice of you Binkles, I'm sure you your friendly manor will not go unappreciated, I hope we mange to get a chance to chat in the future. All the best with the new fishes!! 8)

Hi to you all!! :lol: My name is Danny alias "Doc" I currently reside in a quiet little town called Ashburton. My partners name is Leanne and our boy's name is caleb, our daughters name I will tell you in about 7 weeks time. I am new to this hobby and have only just puchased a new tank midway through december. But since then I've become an obsessed addict, I've consumed huge amounts of information on the subject and feel constantly starved for more. Our tank is a nice little setup called the aquaone AR620 it holds 100L and has a submersed powerhead pumping 550l/h through an overhead filtersytem. It is a very tidy setup and easily accessable (I should be a salesman ) At the moment we have 4 plants and 4 fish consisting of 1- betta named duncan 1- Golden Gourami named Hannah 1- Silver lyretail molly named Jill ( here mate Jack died recently) 1- Sailfin Pleco named oscar All of which were named by the boy, we will keep you posted on new additions to the aquarium. If you want to have a yarn about fish and the likes or you just want to have a plain old chat then feel free to message me anytime!! :lol:

At the moment we have 1- Betta 1- golden gourami 1- silver lyretail molly 1- sailfin pleco in addition to the pair of parrots we also want to add another golden gourami, a black lyretail molly and a school of black neons or rummynose tetras. The biggest thing I'm unsure of is how territorial the gouramis will be towards the parots and vice vercer. I'm sure the rest will be fine. 8)

I have yet to see these cichlids available to purchase, I have the means to aquire them but at a price that I'm not prepared to pay. We have easy access to a pair of red and yellow parots for around $100 so I think we''ll stick with them for now.

By birchir do you mean Osteoglossum bicirrhosum commonly knowen as the silver arowana?

I wouldn't even start to find out about it unless you have a huge bank account. M.A.F hold all imported fish for six weeks and do six inspections on them. And with a charge rate of $75 an hour for doing this that equals huge dollars...

Try reading the forums on www.aquahobby.com there is heaps of information on fishless cycling. If you know someone with a mature setup try using some of thier filter media to get started, shortens the cycle period quite considerably!

I'd go for a fishless cycle myself, there are many posts and information on this forum about it. I think it is just plain cruel to use fish to cycle the tank. It causes them huge stress and shortens thier life span or death with is the usaul case. But if you do decide to use fish to cycle the tank, go out and buy a couple of cheapos for just that purpose. :-?

Gotta keep her interested if i'm to allow more funds to be used on this hobby my friend!!

It's all about dollars darlin!! bigger tank = bigger fish = bigger dollars!!

I don't particulary agree on the methods that are used to breed these fish, but they have huge personality and the Mrs just adores them!! and they are a great excuse to get a larger tank a year down the track when they out grow our 100l tank. 8)

I am planning on getting a pair of blood parots and I would like to know from others about good tank mates and bad tank mates!!