I am new to the forum and new to keeping fish. I had some as a teenager, but plan to do it right this time around! There is something about the Oscar fish that interests me. They seem to really look at you, and I feel that they are one of the more intelligent aquarium fish (based on my very little knowledge ).

I just ordered my aquarium today and expect to have it home by sometime next week. I went with a 75 gallon tank. I know that is the minimum tank size for an Oscar, but it was the most I could afford and I hope to make it work!

Any advice on how to set up my tank would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you,
Melissa

Welcome to the website Melissa. You should find all the information needed to successfully set up an Oscar fish tank in the pages contained in this website. What I will say is don't rush out and buy your Oscar just yet, no matter how tempted you make it. I never recommend cycling a fish tank with the Oscar itself, you are much better off using other types of fish.

It is going to take you six or seven weeks to get your tank into a position where you can start adding an Oscar.

Thanks for the advice. I was planning on getting a hardy fish or two to start with, and cycle the tank, but I didn't know that it would take 6-7 weeks before it would be ready. I can be patient though...

As an alternative to cycling, can you borrow some filter media(the hard rock/tubes stuff) from someone else who has a cycled tank. You put that media in your filter and if you buy only 1 or 2 baby oscars (about 1 or 2inches) you will instantly cycled

yup if u can get hold of sumone else filter media that will boost yr tank.

i generally cycle my tanks with little plecos,but be carefull on which type you get as sum of them get to big and then you stuck with a fish that you dont want.

Bristle nose plecos dont get to big so get two of them and a few weeks later a few guppys(if you obviously dont mind your oscars eventually having them for breakfast)

good luck with the new tank and keep us posted alot of good advice on the site to help you through the way.

Thanks for the advice Vbaby and delboybully. I don't personaly know anyone with an aquarium though..

i generally cycle my tanks with little plecos,but be carefull on which type you get as sum of them get to big and then you stuck with a fish that you dont want.

Yeah, I don't want to do that becuase i only have the 75 gal. and don't want to crowd it. I've read that Danios work well to cycle with. What do you think? Would they eventually become lunch for the Oscar?

Danios will definately become lunch for you oscars. Oscars get big, danios dont, thats a recipe for fish becoming oscar food. This will happen when the oscars can fit them in their mouths. Its very simple, if its fits in an oscars mouth then the oscar will eat it

Or you could use bio-spira to cycle the tank instantly, only problem is that it's expensive, needs to be refrigerated when not in use, and is hard to come by

Cheers,
Art