hi guys

i currently have my two teeny tiny baby red tiger oscars in a 3ft tank with:

2 silver sharks
2 gold gourami
2 angel fish

they are all roughly the same size as each other (including oscars)...theyre all approx 2inches each...

now i know the tank is a little small...but my boyfriend and i will be upgrading to a 6ftx2ftx2ft very soon...

we would like a few more fish...but im not too sure what to put in there...no tetras obviously, that would just be really pricey food for the oscars (i have lots and lots of guppies for that...when they get bigger lol).

we were also thinking maybe a few catfish for the bottom? to try and minimise the waste a little...and to eat a bit of algae... or is that the wrong idea?

help please?

a couple of Pictus cats would be good... but be careful as you will soon have a LOT of big fish.

for that proposed tank size, a school of SD is nice to watch with lesser biolaods.
sometimes, bottom dwellers creates more waste that they are suppose to reduce...

sd...being silver dollars?

my boy doesnt really like the look of them...

what type of tank mate would reduce the waste? even if just a tiny bit...

i was thinking a small variety of pleco maybe?

or if we didnt get a bottom dweller at all, what would you suggest?

if that would be the case, a colorful JD will do....
as to plecs...sorry... i hate plecs thus i don't want to
touch ideas about them.

ehhh...jd?

noob much? lol

yknow i orginally wanted to put rams in the tank...cos theyre so cute and colourful...
then i realised that they could more than likely end up as food for my new babies.
so that idea got scrapped

no to plecs?
okays...

do i need a bottom dweller/algae or waste consumer? or can i skip that?

i am not fond of bottom dwellers...so ..lets wait for other for their ideas...
for plecs... it is up to you...i just give my opinion about it...but the decision
is still yours...

in my case.. i love to watch swimming fish...and i can stay in front of my
tank for long hours just to watch, thus i keep fishes that never sleep

hmmmmm...

any idea how my oscars would do with convicts?

No idea about convicts, other members will help out here.
But, just to give a little balance to Pauls opinion of Plecos, I just love Plecos.
I got quite a few and several live with my Oscar.
I heard stories of Plecos sucking on the slimecoat of Oscars, but i never saw that behaviour in my fish.
I got 6 species, but only one cleans the algae.
beware that your fish will grow for some time, and your 180 will be filled with bigguns in no time.
the other ones just eat and s#it!
So there's a chance of getting a pleco and watch him clean your tank, but there's a bigger chance they'll just be lazy and make a mess of your tank.
If you get one , do it because you like them, not for any help in maintenance.
Adding a pleco to your tank will result in enormous ammounts of pleco poo.
Mine will eat more than one zuchinni a week...

convicts singly are great with oscars. however if your tanks not large enough, and you have more than one convict and they happen to pair off (and they will) they may beat the crap out of your O. even small convicts will attack fish MUCH larger than themselves if they are defending some fry.

noddy:
i did think about them just ending up lazy and not actually cleaning hehehe
so that idea was scrapped...
i did like them initially...my cousin in the philippines had one when i lived there when i was little...i remember him handfeeding it and me thinking it looked cool...but i think we may end up without any catfish...or if we do, we may only get a pictus.
i did originally want corys but theyre too small and may get munched once the baby tigers are bigger...

win:
would one convict be alright with two growing oscar babies?
i dont want them to gang up on it when theyre bigger...

if you plan on keeping your current stock as well as adding something to your bigger tank than i would haave to say that the jds would not be a good option for you.
your best bet would be to find some mates that are nonaggressive and go from there.

as for if you need a bottom feeder or not then the answer would have to be no. a bottom is not necessay and like previously stated can in some cases produce more waste that they eliminate. having said that there are a few species of plecos that do not grow to monstrous sizes and are quite pleasant to look at. as well as some species of catfish and sucking loaches that you might want to look into.