I have a 5 inch Albino Tiger Oscar and a 4 inch Tiger Oscar in my 55 Gallon tank along with a 3 inch Bristlenose Pleco.
I am running a H.O.T. Magnum for filtration and I'm planning on hooking up a hose to the output of the Magnum to run water into a Bio-Wheel 350 for additional filtration.
How long could the two of them live comfortably in this size tank with this much filtration?
I'm planning on eventually getting these guys into a 125.


The dudes


Side-view of the tank...just replaced gravel with sand this last weekend and I'm loving it.


Mr. Bristlenose


The Tank

Whatcha guys think o the set-up?

IMO, you could get away with it for maybe 2-3 months, but you will need to keep a close eye on your watter params.. and the larger they get, the more often you will need to do Water changes.

People seem to agree that 55 gallons is about the minimum for one adult Oscar so I would say that once these two Oscars both reach 7 inches you should be thinking about transferring them into a bigger tank

i had my oscars in a smaller tank like yours
they stayed in there till they were about 6 to 7inchs and had a 5inch pleco with them
but by that time i was doing 2 50% water changes a week to keep water in good quality.
and i was running two aquaclear 110's in the tank about 1000GPH
i would say your running out of time already and might start to be needing to do two water changes a week soon. i was say watch how much you feed to help with water quality until you can get a bigger tank

OFL wrote:



a big x2 on that one. when mine got to about 7", they started trying to kill each other. i think it was a tank space issue. i had to rehome one.

I also think that you will ok until 6 or 7 inches. What you need to do is to test your water every week before a water change. If the nitrates are above 40 then you will need to more frequent or larger water changes.

very nice and clean, sand on the bottom? Personally, that's just little old me, I don't think even 2 oscars should be in a 55, I only have 1, started out with 3, they grow so fast!! Now, he's alone, had a plecostomos in there and it died, now what do I do? A new one would be eaten by him, couldn't afford one big enough to put in there. He's about 8 inches now. My previous albino I had about 10 years ago, grew to 13 inches, I had him stuffed. You can see it in my album. Char

I also think 6 or 7 inches, remember the bigger the Oscar the bigger the poop.
X2 it will be hard to keep up your water parameters.

awesome set huh!
as to your question, as long as it won't get you tire of doing frequent
water change; as long as there is no territorial issue yet; as long as
there is no sudden or abrupt changes;;; you will be fine....say two more
months from now. at least you have a plan to upgrade...unlike with others,
they want to keep the fish in a small tank only to lost them later on due to
non-upgrading.....

Thanks for all the info guys.
I'll continue to watch the water parameters and the temperment of my Os and make adjustments accordingly.

Thanks for the compliments regarding the tank design. I just replaced my gravel with sand and I'm loving the difference.

I am also running a 55 gallon with a red-eared slider and some goldies. Would this be a suitable environment for one of the Os (after goldies were removed)? My turt is very chill about the presence of fish in his tank, he almost never pays them any mind if they are more than an inch long.
Has anyone ever tried this combo?

bit of a risk putting an oscar in with a turtle (if that what a red eared slider is)

nice setup.. looks like a lake malawi setup..? i dont think it is suitable for turtles to be kept with fishes.. unless u hav plenty of space as red ears get quite big and the inch rule doesnt apply to them bcos theyre extremely messy. besides, u need a lot more space to set for the turtle's dry bank. u cant hav turtles swimming in the deep water 24/7..