Hi everyone long time no see, I have finally set up my fabulous Oscars in a new Jewl 450 tank and at the moment they look so small, but at least they have lots of room to grow now.
With the 3 Oscars (I ended up with an extra rescue one)I have one talking catfish, a 6" Plec and two large Loaches no problems so far they seem to be getting along great, I was however looking at getting a couple of fire eels just to finish the tank off, I spoke to the fish shop man and he says two fire eels in a tank my size will be no problem with the Oscars and other co inhabitants but im a little dubious as one slurp and they could be gone my Oscars are around 5" long at the mo what do you knowledgable folk think?
One other thing, im running the standerd filter that came with the aquarium but intend to add a meaty external filter in the next couple of months something that runs twice the capacity of the tank will I have enough room for all these fishies without overloading the bioload if I do this?
Thanks in advance for your imput guys.

Nice to see you again

Okay, unfortunately this is yet another case of a fish store owner giving out erroneous information. Your tank is big enough for one Oscar &W a few tank mates. with all the fish you got at the moment, it will be grossly overstocked once they get bigger. The filtration that comes with your tank is nowhere near good enough to cope with Oscars so at some stage, I would strongly recommend upgrading to an external canister filter.

Sorry that probably isn't what you want to hear, but I'm sure other people will echo what I've said.

Thanks for your quick reply, that is a shame, still I know someone with just one Oscar that would love my plec and maybe the third rescued Oscar could be rehomed.
Its a shame you cant rely on shop assistants selling you fish, you would have thought they would expect them to get a good suitable home rather than just thinking of the money when they sell them but there you go.
Do you think if i thinned down the tank mates and put them in one of my other community tanks there would be enough room for the two remaining Oscars in that tank its just that im quite attached to them?

Your tank is a tad under 100 gallons isn't it? Don't tell anybody I said this, but with extra tank maintenance and sizeable water changes, you may just get away with having 2 O's. You are borderline as we would normally recommend over 100 gallons but you can only but try. However, the internal filters on the JUWEL tanks will have a hard time keeping up with two adult O's so extra filtration is absolutely necessary

p.s here are some pics of the setup (if I uploaded right)

Thanks, there is hope yet then, i was intending to buy an external filter in the next couple of months anyway, I was thinking of something than ran twice the size of the tank. I have seen a few they retail at about £200.00 give or take which isnt so bad considering I should get years of use out of it.
I will look into rehousing the extra Oscar and juggling the tankmates into various new homes (not literally ha ha)
my apologies for this thread turning into a tank setup thread but it did start off as a tank mate enquirey thread oops!