hey there, i just bought a 60us gallon tank and 2 albino oscars. it has a 60gallon rated top filter and a fluval 204 (think its rated for 40 gallons). my question is how long until i need a larger tank and am i overkilling on the filtration?

first thing first, did you buy the tank with the fishes?
in aquarium hobby, set up should be in place before getting
fishes. the tank should be properly cycled, otherwise, it will
stress your fishes.

as to your question.... there no such over filtration. dirty
water can be cleaned through filtration while clean water remains
clean even if you filter it several times. your advantage of having
two or more filtering machine is that you have back up once the other one coink-up.

no i bought the tank first then bought the fish a week later

okey, thanks.... just making sure of it.
you're just doing fine....

from your posst i gather that you had your tank setup for one week prior to getting your oscars. how was the tank cycled? there is an article on cylcing a fishtank on the homepage of this site which can help in explaining why aquariums need to be cycled.

as for filtration i would say that the overhead plus the fluval 204 is not quite enough for your tank with a mature oscar in it.personally i would upgrade the 204 to a 405 and this should last for the life. also you can never overfilter an oscar tank.

speaking of tanks you have a 60 us gallon tank which is fine for one oscar no tankmates. the problem you have is that you bought 2 albinos. they will be fine in your tank for about 6 month or so then you will have to either upgrade to a larger tank or rehome one of the oscars.

also i would strongly suggest that you get a water test kit with a liquid reageant that test for ammonia nitrates and nitrites. this will save you time and money if for some reason your oscars begin to act strangly.


hope some of this helps

a few months and youd be fine, just dont overdue it with fish. remember oscars gegt quite large. imagine 2 14 inches in that 60 gallon tank.

id also highly recommend getting some test kits. especially ammonia. so if you do have problems, you can fix them. i see it so many times people setting up tanks and dropping fish in too quickly and the ammonia spikes. oscars are also sensitive to ammonia

i got an ammonia test, its at 1. is that ok?

actually no an ammonia reading of 1 is quite bad. i qould suggest doing a 50% water change asap and follow that with 30% water changes every second day until you have an ammonia reading of 0. also get a good testing kit which will test for nitrites as well. keep doing water changes until both your ammonia and nitrites read 0 on the test kit.

both ammonia and nitrites are poisonous to fish and ignoring these reading could lead to the loss of all the fish in your tank.

the kit said up to 4 is ok when u first start out until the biological filter is asstablished. ive only had it goin 4 a week. the fish seem fine, happy active and brite colored.

but if you can not bring it down to 0, your fish
will eventually change their behavior and become
sick. most common sign is film in the eyes or blurred
eyes.

ive seen some terrible advice with the tank kits. i bought a whole tank kit and everything not that long ago, and it said to add 1/3 of the fish that you plan on getting in the 2nd day. it doesnt specify any fish that might actually live. then your first water change is done after a month. when i read this i couldnt believe my eyes. and this was like a beginer kit, so a lot of people dont know any better. so dont go by that. usually, it takes about a month to cycle out and you use fish like danios that can handle high levels of ammonia. or you just let it go till the levels fall down due to helpful bacteria

so how can i drop it down to zero. is there something i can add or just do more water changes?