After our last mature Oscar died jumping out of his 55 gallon tank I decided to just replace him with smaller community fish. The 55 gallon just seemed too small even for one full grown Oscar. He was 14" and weighed 2.5 lbs when he died. Well my son had other ideas and brought home a pair of baby Os. Fred and Ethel, A tiger and albino. They are quite cute and seem bonded to eachother. Of couse they ate all my little fish on about a week .
Anyway, since the tank was too small for one O, two wasn't going to work. So after about a month I bought and set up a 150 gallon tank. It has two 150 watt heaters, an air pump, and two emperor 400 filters. I filled it and ran it for 24 hours, added tank decorations from the old tank, some gravel from the old tank in nylon socks and the sponges from the old whisper filter. Then added my Os and the rapheal cat from the old tank.
Figured I'd have an instantly cycled tank, well no such luck. First week ammonia was hanging at .5, nitites 1, nitrates 20 ph 7.6
mini cycle I assumed? So did daily 10-20 percent water changes using stress coat water conditioner.
Well 2 weeks into this we're in worse shape, ammonia is consistently 1, 0 nitrites and 0 nitrates. Ph 7
I took down the old tank so only choice is to work with what ive got. Any suggestions? The Os are about 4" each and the little cat is about 6"

unfortunetly you will have to go through the cycling process with your new oscars in the tank.
all you can do is waterchanges every second day of about 30% and in time you will have a cycled tank. trying to keep feedings to a minimun will also help with the ammonia.
the only other option you have is to find a friend with an established tank and get some seeded bio media from them. this will cut your cycling time down drastically and get you up and running a lot faster.
good luck to you with your new tank and o's and keep us posted on your progress...


btw welcome to the site

Welcome!
I think the sponges of the old filter should have seeded the new filter.
How long did you take to get those in the new filter, for if they are kept out of the waterflow for too long the bacteria will die.
Anyway, i say do a 30% waterchange daily until ammonia and nitrite levels are back at 0.
Do not clean your filters in the meantime, that is if they're not clogged.

Thanks for the welcome and advice. I've lurked on here for a while and learned a lot. That is the frustrating part, thought I knew what I was doing. I guess not cuz somehow I managed to kill off my bacteria. I did move it directly from one tank to the next.
Here I thought I was doing a good thing for the Os, but now they have to go through an entire tank cycle.
At least they seem like hardy fish. The last one I didn't have a clue, just tossed him n a brand new tank, didn't even know about testing. He lived 6 years, appeared very healthy, up until his suicide, that is.

My other problem is since being netted and transferred going on three weeks ago the little Os are very skittish, no more begging for food, and they run and hide when someone approaches the tank.
Just how long can they hold a grudge? Or is it the water quality that has them spooked?

The skittishness will pass in some time.
I netted my new Tiger several times to get him from the LFS to quarantinetank to maintank.He spooked for some weeks but now i have to push him away to make sure he doesn't eat the fish intended for the gar...
They'll come around.
Just do your best for the waterquality.
btw if Necro says wc every other day, please do that!

One thing that could be hurting your tank is lack of filtration. I have a 120 gal and 2 Emperor 400s were not nearly enough. I had constant problems.You need a canister filter.2 reasons; much more water circulation and they hold a lot more bio filter media. I bought an Fluval Fx5 and have had no problems. Each Emperor 400 is rated for an 80 gal tank for Oscars that isn`t nearly enough.

I've never used a canister filter, not sure how to set one up, but sure seems like a good idea.
I'll search the site for directions and where to buy. The lfs said the emperors were the best they had.
Since they are brand new can I just add a canister filter to the current set up, hate to just throw the current ones away.

You can never Over filter an Oscar tank... There are some great canisters out there... I will post a link to one I have, actually I have 3... They work great and they are relatively in expensive. This filter along with the ones you already have will be more than enough!

Nicki is right. You can certainly add a canister filter to your set up. I wasn`t saying the emperor were bad filters they are just not big enough for your tank with Oscars. I learned the hard way before finding this site to help.

I would do daily water changes of 25-30% until cycled, dont clean the filter until cycling is complete and feed sparingly. For small fish the usual amount to feed is twice a day what they will eat in 2 mins, if i were you i would half this what they can eat in 1 min twice a day

Setting up cannister filters are easy, just follow the instructions. If i were you i would go for a fluval fx5. This will give you more than enough filtration and they are excellant filters

I think it was urself Nicki that told me u had a UV sterilizer. I have'nt read much reports on them do you see a great difference in ur tanks with it? What is the main thing germ wise etc that it sterilizes?
Nicki--Sue wrote:

Jamie, in all honesty, I do see a difference... Not a huge one, but enough. I have 3 of these filters, and 1 has the UV and 2 don't... They are an all around great filter.. But if I got the chance to buy one again I would get it WITH the UV.

The main thing is the Algea in the water... In the tank, and sometimes the water has algae and then gets a light green tint to it, and that NEVER happens in the tank with the UV Sterilizer.