yesterday i was looking through the freecycle site for my area and found an ad for a jd to give away.being curious i contacted the owner and setup a visit just to check him out. upon arriving i saw a beautiful male js in appalling conditions.they had him a 10 gal tank and the water was brown in colour. so now im the proud owner of a 6"jd(male i think)who i was told has homicidal tendencies.(he killed all the tankmates he was ever with).

i know nothing of jd's so is there anything i should know about keeping them? i plan on putting him in a 50 gal after he finishes his stay in the quarentine tank.


thx in advance cris

well first off, jds get really aggressive. my jd who was about 6'' at the time killed 3 of my 10'' oscars. i had a smaller 1 in another thank (im guessing 3'' at the time) and i was forced to put them together because both fish would kill everything. goodthing i did because now they are mating. they require the same care as an ocar would, but if you add any fish, witch i wouldnt recommend, make sure they are much bigger and keep an eye on him.

they are very much like oscars but more aggressive. they can be less social, but mine swim around begging for food like my os

i bet that fish is much happier with you

the males are much more colorfull and have a very pointed dorsal fin. sometimes it can be hard to tell if the fish was fed wrong, stressed, or has damage on its fins. this could leed to a lack of color and a rounded top fin, which may make a male look like a female.

they have always been one of my favorite fish, but they just get too damn aggessive. id never even attempt to mix species in with jds. they are hardy fish, beautiful in color, and easy to breed and take care of.

thanks for the info. i think he'll be much happier in his new home but for now he's still in the small tank (for another few days) until i get my 50 ready for him.

btw can anyone tell me if he's a he or a she

here's a pic of my new jd(still in quarintine)


i234.photobucket.com/albums/ee103/necromancer4/DSCI0086.jpg

its a male. females are much more blackish in color or sometimes even browish. and see how pointed his top fin is??? females are less pointed and sometimes even rounded. very nice jack!!

heres a pic of my pair of jds. u can see that the smaller female is much less colorful. you cant see the fins so much because of the quality if the pic. phone camera is all i got

well i broke down and went to the lfs here and purchased what i believe to be a female jd to put into the tank with my male.so far it has been about 5 days and he hasn't killed her yet so i'm hoping they might be happy together.

i tried to find one that matched the one in metalheads photo and i think i succeeded. i'll post a pic ion a few days to see if i did get a female.

heres the pic of my jacks


i234.photobucket.com/albums/ee103/necromancer4/DSCI0003-1.jpg

Jd's are named after a boxer and can live up to the reputation. However not all are. I have a jd that isnt aggressive at all and never has been. I have spoken to a few people who think the aggression has been (accidentally) bred out with certain breeders

If the previous owner says it killed other fish then you probably have an aggressive one tho.

Nice looking fish

well after about 5 months in there own tank i finally got the nerve up to try and introduce my 2 jacks into my oscar tank. the last time i tried this the male jack was constantly attacking my red and albino oscar(who were smaller than him at the time) and left the bigger tigers alone. now all the oscars are significantly larger than the jacks and things so far seem to be going fine.(a little chasing but i think they have to figure out living area).
now the press is on for the new tank because i think im overstocked in my main tank now. do you think 300 imp gallon tank will be big enough for my 4 oscars 2 jds 2 convicts a sucking loach and a rainbow shark?

so u do have a male and female i use to breed jacks to sell to the lfs my male was 9 inches and female was 7 inches oh and the way i tell between males and females are by the gill plates the female will have blotchie spots on the bottom of half the gill plates and the males spots will be on the top half in yur pic male is on left female is on right hope all goes well for ya

well about a week of harmonyous(sp?) living goes by and finally jack snapped. he is now constantly attacking my albino. he wont leave the poor thing alone and finally i had to put a divider in my tank. the funny thing is he doesnt bother any of the other fish in the tank (and there are some smaller than he is)only the albino. i thought it might be because hes mostly white but he leaves the pink convicts alone. so now im looking at getting another tank and rehousing some fish.(i quess there are worse thing than getting another tank )

so i took the divider out of my tank this morning to see if my jack would stop attacking my albino oscar. and in less than a minute he was at him again. needless to say the divider is now back in the tank.so i quess its off to the local fish store to buy another tank on thursday. i have had my eye on a 65 gallon tank and i think im going to get it for my pair of jacks. hopefully this will be enough for them to live the rest of their lives in and maybe even breed.