so i have crunched the numbers and steven's current home is just shy of 55 US gallons, so being the responsible owner of steven i have managed to track down a second hand tank which i think will last him the rest of our lives together, W: 180.00cm, H: 63cm, D:60cm so giving steven a total of 174.91 US gallons ....... NICE ! !
so the question is this i want to no what is the best way to clean this bad boy ?
cheers
ean and steven

Hey there!
Congratz on the find.
Your fish and you will love that very much.
You'll see your fish portrait totally different behaviour in a decent size tank.

On cleaning, i use a nailbrush for most cleaning.
Never use any soap or likewise substances.
Any traces you may have of calcium can be cleaned of with vinegar.
Just make sure you rince good afterwards.
Anything specific you wanted to clean that i missed?
What filtration do you plan on getting?
Oscars love Oversized filters!

so just a nail brush and raw vinegar and rinse well and this will sort any poss disease ?
as far as filters go i currently run eheim 2215 so was going to get one more to match but brand new ! so will have to cycle tank ?
or can i simply add to my currently running tank for 8 wks ?
then shift ? is that a stupid idea ?
cheers

Yes, that should be enough.
Most pathogens don't survive a dry tank anyways.
Clean and rince well afterwards and syphon out the water you use.
Does the tank come with anything, like background, lights, etc?

On cycling: I say get your new filter and attach it to the old tank and have them run together for some time.
The old filter will help seed the new one with beneficial bacteria.
On the other hand, if the old filter is cycled, it should cope with your bioload good enough.
So setting up your new tank, filling it up and adding waterconditioner, place the old filter on the new tank and i think your ready to go.
Just get the second one and attach that too.
You may wanna transfer most of the old water too.

Just take care you don't add anything to yourbioload, for i know you will be tempted to add more fish when you see your tiny fish in that big @SS tank!
Believe me, i know!

F#$K you read my mind
but on a serious note does anyone ever think of running small school fish in there tank or do oscars not realise there is a dinner time, breakfast etc etc
but i promise no more oscars steven is enough !
cheers

just one other question: can i or is it worth setting up the second filter onto an under gravel filter ? and do eheim products allow also i am using small gravel sub straight at the mo but was going to mix it with sand as i dont want to be the 1 in 1 million to wake up to any empty tank :angry: is this poss ?
cheers

Undergravel filters do not work with Oscars.
I have a school of Silver Dollars.
Anything smaller could work for some time, but will probably be eaten in time.
My Oscar know exactly when dinnertime is in his opinion, ALL the time.

distilled white vinegar is the best thing to clean a tank, its a good cleaner, it takes the white calcium deposits off the glass, and its disinfectant too.

If you are going to use a undergravel filter (UGF) with oscars you need to use a gravel tidy. Even better take the output from a cannister filter and put it on the uplift tube so its pushes water down the tube. This way you have the extra filtration of the UGf but also you dont have to do any gravel cleans (apart from scooping any big bits and lift the decor up to clean under them)

delboybully wrote:


i heard something about what you suggest is there an eheim UGF ?
i was thinking to do this to help stop pockets ?
cheers