My son got thrown in jail for fighting (again) and I had to clear out his apartment because the landlord was BS - and I inherited a 100 gallon aquarium that has two Oscars, three of the Jack Dempsey fish, two sucker fish and a cat fish.

The Jack Dempsey fish were fighting with the Oscars so I put in a barrier to divide the tank... but when I woke up this morning I found them all huddling together on either side of the screen and they all seemed miserable! So I took the screen out.

I just don't understand fish, so I'm hoping to learn a lot here!



The Ninth Scribe

sorry to hear about your son.

How long would you have to look after the fish for?

Okay, I'm not going to bombard you with advice, I'm just going to give you a little bit of advice to help you look after the fish

Firstly, have you got any water testing kits? Ammonia, nitrite, nitrates and pH. There may be some in his apartment. I suggest that you test the water every now and then, ammonia and nitrite should always be zero, nitrate shouldn't really rise above 40 and the pH level is okay between 6.0 & 8.0.

When you do the tests, read the instructions extremely carefully, especially nitrate, if you are using liquid tests, you will have to shake the bottle is for a period of time for them to work properly.

Okay, the tank is little small for the fish you've got so I would suggest doing a fairly large water change, around 40%. Please test the water before. You can either use a hosepipe to put the water back, or use buckets. whichever method you use, you must use a water conditioner to remove the chlorine and certain other elements that are added to tap water. a lot of these water conditioners Neutralise chlorine straight away so it's okay to add it to the tank and then add the water. I done this for many years and I've never had knee problems. What I would advise you to do is put and enough water condition in for the whole tank, not just the water you are putting in. Whilst we are talking about changing water, you will need to do award to change at least once a week, mentioning that the amount of fish you've got again, I would advise you to test the water for five days after the water change and see what the nitrate is. If it hasn't risen above 40 ppm then you are probably okay doing water change once a week.

You can vacuum the gravel once a week if you want. However, I would advise you not to clean the filtration just at the moment, wait until you've got a bit of experience doing the easy stuff in the tank. You've got to be very careful with your filtration system, it's very easy to upset the biological filter which could be a potential disaster for your fish.

Finally, they feed your fish too much, it's better to under feed them over feed.

Hopefully, this will help you look after the fish for the time being. If you have any queries then don't hesitate to come on here and ask, you are better off asking questions before doing something that you are not quite sure about.

My son is OK. He's a great kid, but he likes to scrap... which probably explains why he likes these kinds of fish. He violated parole (from the fight before) for 60 days, so he should be out in a couple months.

When I got to the apartment, the water level had dropped so low the pump was running, but it wasn't pumping any water. They didn't look good at all. The landlord turned off the heat so they were freezing cold too.

I put them in a 5 gallon bucket and dumped the whole tank and moved them. Before I set the tank up, I cleaned it and the gravel thoroughly! Then I introduced them to the aquarium, but they were floating on their sides. They were fine the next morning, but they wanted lots of food... or so I thought.

Then the Jack Dempsey fish started nipping at the bottom fins of the Oscars, so they started to hide. I divided them with a screen, but they (none of them) liked that, so I just took the screen out this morning and when I did - the water clouded up with a ton of fish food flakes!

So I'm going to change the water today... 40% as you suggested after I use this gravel vacume my son has in the fish care box. And I guess you're right. I'm going to have to be careful not to over-feed them. Besides, that seems to be when they fight the most.

Will let you know how it works out. Will have to get the test kits, they weren't there with the fish foods.

Thanks

welcome to the site hope things go well for you and your new guests

Thanks. There's certainly enough to learn. I was checking out the website and there's tons of stuff that can go wrong! I'm going to have to be very careful.

jack dempseys tend to get too agressive for o's. i have a large dempsey that killed its 3 previous oscar tankmates who were much bigger at the time. he now lives with a female dempsey less than half his size and they paired after 2 years!! no babies yet.

When refilling the tank try to get the water temperature of the fresh water the same as the the water in the tank

Good luck with your new friends

OMG! That's terrible! The Jack Dempsies I have stopped fighting with the Oscars ever since the larger of the two Oscars lost his temper with the one that kept bothering him. I didn't know they could open their mouths that big! Now the Jack Dempsies are messing around with each other... but it seems awefully playful to me... just games of chase.

I have to change their water now. The tank is definately too small for them, so I'm always changing the water. I read the article about water temp, so I make sure the new water temps match.

They've all grown on me, so I'm going to bum out when Kevin comes back for them.

All fish are different and some are more aggressive than others. If you find one fish is bullying another to the point where it is getting badly injured or is hiding away all the time and miserable, then my advice would be to separate them. If you only have one tank then that means re homing one. This has happened to me a couple times and i always re home (find a friend or someone to take it or take it back to a shop) the aggressive fish

welcome yea i started out with 2 Os and a green terror and a jack dempsy. i ended up having to get rid of the green terror first and i just got rid of my jack both fish are way to aggresive for Os in my opinion. Good luck with your tank!

welcome yea i started out with 2 Os and a green terror and a jack dempsy. i ended up having to get rid of the green terror first and i just got rid of my jack both fish are way to aggresive for Os in my opinion. Good luck with your tank!