2 12" oscar fish, 1 8" texas cichlid, 4 other 4" varieties of cichlid, and one pleco. ALL GONE I wasn't home when this happened but apparently their oxygen got cut off!!

Anyhow, the silver lining is that I can start a brand new tank.

My tank size is 150 gallons. I would like to have a mixture of oscars and silver dollars, pleco for sure; and maybe others?

can you recommend me the right mixture in terms of how many of each type?

Sorry to hear about your loss, it's always a bit of a worry when you leave your tank in the care of others.

Okay, if I was in your position, I would have two Oscars, and a small shoal of silver dollars, these two species of fish come from the same part of the world and mix extremely well. I would forget about the pleco. The chances are you'll get one of the big ones and then you're probably end up with water quality problems further down the line. If you desperately want a pleco, try and obtain one of the ones that don't exceed 8 inches, many of them are very expensive though.

Thanks for the tip! I thought plecos were good because they cleaned up the poo that settles onto the sediment? I'm thinking for one of those cleaning type fish.

Is there another species of fish I can introduce in addition to 2 oscars, and 5 silver dollars? I want more variety but at the same time I know the fish will grow to be very big and tax the filter's power to clean.

If you want to run a healthy tank that doesn't require tons of maintenance, then you have to think very carefully about how many fish you have in it. It's too easy to overstock the tank and then end up with serious water quality problems. You should not have to do more than one water change a week, if you are having to do this, then in my opinion, you are probably overstocked, or over f feeding. The only time lots of water changes are required it if you are cycling the tank, trying to heal disease, or bringing up babies. Other than that, a weekly water change should be all that is needed. You have to remember that fish don't really like the upheaval that goes on during the water change. This is often quite evident with Oscars, they will hide away and sulk after a water changes being carried out. You want to do your best not to stress there shall, stressed fish can develop disease and illness.

Remember your Oscars can easily reach 12 inches, silver dollars will reach 6 inches, that's quite a lot of fish for a five or 6 foot tank. I'm not going to go through a long list of other tank mates that you could get because all the information is on this website and I spent long enough writing it all

Take a look at my photo gallery, that should give you a good indication of some really suitable tank mates.

www.oscarfishlover.com/index.php/compone...y2/Itemid,173/gid,3/

Thanks

One thing that isn't mentioned in the guides... can I just feed cichlid fish food for both the oscars and the silver dollars?

as long as the dollars aren't too small, they will get a decent feed, they are not scared of Oscars and will quite happily compete with the Oscars for food, especially surface food. However, if you're worried about them getting enough food, put in some food that sinks , bloodworm is an excellent food for silver dollars, if you make sure you defrost it before putting it in the tank, it disburses throughout the whole tank and gives all the smaller fish a chance to get their fill.

great! in terms of nutrition the cichlid food will be enough for the silver dollars too?

ofl got you covered. he is the expert.
what i can say is just... GOOD LUCK.
hope you can make it right this time.

Ok!

My new fish acquisitions:

1x normal tiger oscar
1x albino tiger oscar
6x silver dollars

I really wanted a pleco but they were way too small at the pet shop.

Al the silver dollars are lying flat on the gravel!!! PANIC!!

your list sounds good to me and if i remember correctly you have a 150 us gallon tank. i think with this you should do fine with the amount of fish you chose.


sorry i cant help with the siver dollar problem. i have never owned them myself so i dont know if this is how the react wehn stressed. hopefully they will recover quickly for you.

UPDATE:

4 silver dollars are normal now. They eventually found each other and now they're schooling together
2 silver dollars which laid flat... I took a closer look and they're DEAD



Oscars are doing well. They've been trying to nibble the silver dollars but failed.

The fishes aren't eating flakes and pellets!!!