I'm picking up a texas cichlid later today but I don't think that will help. Is there anything that could go in with that and my Oscar that would eat some of the food that the Oscar makes a mess of? It's amazing how much mess even one food stick can make!

I guess the alternative is to hoover any mess up after it's made?

Tank is 97.5 UK / 117 US

i have a synodontis catfish in with my O's. When it's feeding time, he comes out of his log to eat what the O's drop.

Same with my Silver Dollars.
They're my cleaning crew.
My O isný that messy but he's not taking pallets, mostly mealworms.

I've just noticed that dollars reach 6 - 8" so I don't think they're really an option for me.

yes, they can become quite big and having a shool, wouldt count for some bodymass!
So vacuuming it is, i suppose...

As there's no set rule for working out many fish can be had in a tank how would I work out whether I have any space left? I figure if I can work that out then I can look at my options if there are any.

Hard to tell indeed, especially if your fish are still growing.
Got my tanks Pretty packed but i started out with too much filtercapacity.
I started out with carp, and kept checking my parameters.
I pushed to limit there and WQ stayed good all the time.



Mind you the carp stayed for some more months after this video.
The biggest were 10-12" when they went to the pond.
That's how i found out personally.
But how to calculate, i really don't know.
btw keeping 12"carp in a 6'tank is actually a bad idea.
Man, those guys were restless!

Looks like a very nice tank. I like the idea of the hanging plants.

What you have to remember is that the SD's will eat some of your oscar waste but they will still need feeding. By adding SD's you will increase the amount of food you will need to feed and thus will increase the amount of tank maintainence. Having said that Sd's are very small in body mass when compared to oscars and texas. I think you would be ok with 3 or 4 SD's.

There's 3 silver dollars being advertised locally at 4-5". Would these be big enough not to get eaten by a 9" Oscar and 9" Texas?

in my experience probably the best cleaner fish I have had are goldfish or koi. i used to buy 50 at a time to feed to my O till i learned it was bad to feed them that, but my gosh that tank would be CLEAN after a few days with those guys in there if i fed lightly. i think my pleco makes more mess than hes worth, and my lil syndontis is too small to make much of an impact... but gold fish... mine will root around in the gravel and stick their face down into it to like the depth of their eyes! they are like a vacuum! great for keeping the substrate clean, but not many people really want to deal with goldfish because they can get pretty large, but when they get to be bigger than the oscar could eat i would just dip them out before a fishin trip... u get the idea for the rest of the story lol. catfish love em!

edit: i just saw the video, i guess i missed the page 2 posts when i typed that up lol, nice looking tank, reminds me of my koi tank back when it was crowded lol. looks pretty but damn they make the water bad pretty quick, seems like goldfish/koi/carp make alot of ammonia, more so than my otherfish do.

ViolentJ wrote:

Luckily they're just as high as long, don't think they fit in your O's mouth.

Yesterday one of my SD's was gnawing at a dead fish'tail, while my Gar was getting ready to swallow the fish.
The thrill-seeker!