Would my pink veil tail oscar (male) get along with a green terror cichlid (male)?

Is your tank big enough?

Okay, . They can be very aggressive to other fish, hence why are they are called terrors. Personally, I wouldn't put one in with your Oscar. If you had a large red or Tiger Oscar, then you might get away with it. You could run into problems and end up damaging your Oscar because they have very delicate fins.

I had a green terror once and it battered an oscar twice its size. So off to the shop the terror went. However I have been told that, like oscars, not all green terrors are the same and some are less aggressive than others. I have also been told that ALL green terrors are aggressive. If you are gonna go for it a big tank with some dither fish would be a very good idea

Green Terrors are nasty. General rule, if the male cichlid has a big hump on it's head then it's pretty mean.

I've got to get up on my soapbox about "Dither Fish" for a minute. If you have incompatible species in your aquarium then you've screwed up. Why sacrifice some poor Convict just to get picked on? There is also a post here were someone said that Africans are highly advised as dithers. I'm sure that in an aquarium that is lightly stocked and has soft water with a pH between 6.7 and 7.0 an African would be fairly docile. But in the proper environment (heavily stocked, hard salty water and a pH near 8.0) the South Americans would be ripped to shreds! Do your homework. And if two fish don't get along, separate them. It's only fair.

As far as i understood it, dither fish are placed in an aquarium to spread any aggresion, not to get picked on. They just have to be non aggressive but fast, silver dollars would be an example. If I am wrong please explain what they are as I would like to know

Personally the only reason I would put fish in a tank is because I like the look of them (assuming they are compatible). I agree about separating fish that are too aggro with each other

Back to the original question it seems the overall answer is no dont put a green terror in with an oscar

I keep Silver Dollars with my Oscars for the purpose of having them eat the food the O's blow out of their gills. And yes, the Silver Dollars move like lightning. They can easily escape a territorial fish. When my O's were spawning however the mean factor was sufficiently high that even though they could run, they had no place to hide. Fish live in tiny glass boxes (even 350gal. isn't a ton of space) and if they cannot peacefully coexist then eventually someone's going to get hurt. That's not to say that you shouldn't chose tank mates that aren't ever going to let you O's exercise their nasty side. I just think that it's only right to have the balance of power in the aquarium be even. In the case of the Green Terror. The only reason to use a smaller fish would be to distract it from the Oscar in hopes that it would bully the little guy. That's just not fair.

Many people talk about Dither Fish as a way to quell aggression. When I think "Dither Fish", I'm thinking about a type of fish that would be used to Encourage fish to be more active. Example: Keeping Minnows in a pond to make the Koi or Goldfish less shy. That's how I personally use the term. With that in mind, there shouldn't be any need to encourage activity in O's and Terrors so long as they are healthy.

Side note: If you want to keep Green Terrors (because they are fascinating) give them a cluttered environment with lots of things to mark their territories. A bar that I work at keeps them and these fish actually try to harass the people who sit by them for getting in their space. Very similar to my Red Devil.

I was toying with the idea of adding a small group of silver dollars to my new 300 gallon tank. However, I am going to put a few plants in the tank, probably some Java fern and moss. I know that silver dollars vegetarians and have a reputation for eating plants. Having never kept them before, I'm wondering whether it's worth it or not I don't want to go to all that trouble putting in plants only to have them eaten. I'm just wondering whether it would leave Java fern alone since it's quite a hardy tough plant, not very delicate like some of them

Considering green terrors are large, aggressive cichlids, they would tear your oscars fins off, considering he's a veil-tail. OFL, i think a school of silver dollars would be great for your new tank. Silver Dollars will eat some of your plants, however, but they also need them to be happy.

Whoever suggested Africans as dithers, I don't think so. Africans are also large cichlids, and can be very aggressive to SA's. However, only larger species or mbuna would actually attack a full-grown oscar, so your safe there.

Oscarfishlover wrote:

I've never kept Java Fern. I can say from experience however that Swords get shredded. I kept Anacris with them that seemed ok. But that stuff will take over a tank in no time.

I am not at all worried about fast-growing plants. I would rather have that than plants that die off as soon as you put them in the tank. At least you can prune them.

The trick is getting a good root system down before the fish have a chance to play tug of war. Sometimes that's easier said than done. The thing is, it's all very well getting your plants rooted in properly, you've got to keep them alive and healthy. I haven't decided on a good lighting unit yet. Whereas I want to keep things looking reasonably authentic, I would like to try and keep the plants alive.