On the weekend i upgraded tanks from a 4 foot 350ltr to an AquaOne AquaGrande 6 foot 540liter. A lot of thought went in to the move and i didn't want any problems and lets just say things couldn't have went smoother.

When i first started out with oscars i had 2 but when they reached puberty it turned out the were both males and the fighting was so bad i had to get rid of one, I knew i was pushing the limits having 2 oscars and a couple of tank mates in a 350 liter but i always planned to up grade.....Anyway when the time came to put my fish in the new tank i (as well as some advice i got from this website) thought it would be the perfect time to try add another oscar, hoping to get a female so they would get on.

I had seen a couple of medium oscar im my LFS a black tiger and a white tiger, I choose the white tiger because she (i refer to the ne oscar as a girl because i have my fingers crossed it is a girl) was bigger and thought it would look cool having different colour oscars, i picked the new girl up the morning i was changing tanks. My old oscar is named Mastodon after the heavy metal band and is almost 11 inches and about 1 yr old.

When i got home from the LFS i put the new girl in a bucket by herself with an airstone in it to keep up oxegen levels in the water. The next thing i done was put mastodon in a large plastic container and the rest of the fish in a couple of buckets all with airstones for oxegen.

Catching Mastodon was pretty easy.


All the smaller guys in buckets....forgot to get one of Mastodon



I wanted the new tank in the same place as the old one so when the fish were safe in buckets i moved the new tank right in front of the old one so it was almost in place and used my canister filter to pump the waterin to the new tank. During the week before the move i put the bio media from the new filter in the filter baskets and placed in in my old tank to start the seeding process as advised by my LFS.




Once the old tank was empty i moved it out of the way then pumped the water back in to the old tank and moved the new tank in to position.







Once the new tank was in its spot i added the gravel rocks, driftwood, connected the filter, heater light and air pump then put the water back in the tank along with some new water. next i added the smallere fish then the new girl. The whole time the new girl was in the bucket she was lying on herside, i guess she was just sulking cause as soon as i floated her in a bag in the new tank she couldn't wait to get out. Once she was in the tank she was seemed a bit shy but was still keen to check out her new home. Next was Mastodon, I planned on putting him in an hr or 2 later but now i was behind schedule and had plans that night so had to fast track things a little. The new girls was in the tank for about 30min before i put Mastodon in. Before i put him in added a 2 piece sunken ship decoration to the tank so the new girl could have somewhere to hide incase of bullying. Once mastodon was in the tank he did not seemed phased by the whole ordeal and swam around checking out his new tank. I tested the water and all was well. When the 2 oscars seen each other for the first time mastodon swam over to her and she went in to hiding for the rest of the night.
The next day there was a slight bit of bullying going on....the new girls is keeping to the left near her ship and Mastodon keeping to the right but from time to time charging to the otherside of the tank towards the new girl, no lip locking or hitting each other has happened but Mastodon is deffenatly bossing the new girl round and she spends most of her time in the ship but will try to come up for food when feeding.

The tank


Mastodon


The New girl in her ship


At the moment the moment i'm not sure if they will get on or not, i guess i will just give the some time and its good to know the new girl has some where to go it things get heavy.

I am running my canister filter 1500ltr/hr and internal filter 2000ltr/hr from my old tank as well as the new filter that came with the tank which is a top of tank wet dry trickel filter 2000liter/hr.


I have a plane black background on the new tank and Mastodon is always trying to attack his reflection.

The tank is not finished yet....dont plan on having a ship in the tank and will be replacing it with driftwood and some light need replacing but the hard part is over.

Sorry about the long post but just thought it would be good to document the move.

One last thing if the 2 oscars dont get on it was thinking of putting mastodon back in the old tank for a couple of weeks to let the new girl settle in and claim some territory. My question is how long would it take for the new filter to bulid up enough bacteria to to support the tank?

Thanks again for reading.

Looking good. setting up a large tank is a lot of work, but you certainly get your reward in the end

Glad to hear that the ship is going

The post was not to long, i found it interesting & by the way i really like the new tank. Good luck with it mate.

Hey OFL......shiver me timbers...hahaha

Cheers Rowan 19 glad you liked it. I was hoping it would be interseting for all the guys and girls on here!

great post !!!!!!!! great tank!!!!!!!! great fish!!!!!!!!! great dreads!!!!!!!!! bad ship.......LOL

Thanks BGH...dreads can be as much work as fish, but hey they look cool!

I am a big fan of pirate's but yes i agree the ship is bad but is acting as a good refuge for the new girls for now so i just have to deal with it.

I will post new pics when the tank is finished.

i understand about the ship....just having a dig !!!! LOL cant wait for the pics!!

I really thought it was just me that hated them ships, i cant stand them, so whats the reason you lot dont like them?

Really nice set up bud. And I love your pretty fish!

the ship is serving a great shelter for his oscar at the moment but i think they look false and i like to try to replicate the type of natural environment the particular fish species live in ...hence me calling my big tank an "amazon tank" i have tried to replicate the natural surroundings found there to the best of my ability ..plants decor etc..malawies would get a lake malawi environment etc....but i cant in my mind see a place for a ship thats out of scale..i did think about sinking the front half of a real full size wrecked wooden boat in the tank which i think would look amazing..but not the small resin out of scale ones

Nice work and good writing.
Hope things will work out fine with your new fish!