oscar keeping q's ??

what about a sponge or mop for the fry to hide in???


and yea i had planed on getting about 30 of them and putting them all in the 10 gal. i just feed all the minnows out to the oscars so they will be okay for a little while.

i had about 15 minnows in there for maybe 2 months and i might have seen a few that were small and maybe fry. but thats it. im hoping the guppies will reproduce alot more.

 

i have a real plant in there and then some real plants draped across the top and have extra fake plants, i just did not think that would give them enough cover. but if that works then im good to go.

 

cleaning crew. got one pleco, but i need more cleaning power. just get more pleco's??

i had them little algae eaters that only get a few inches long that were doing great, but of course, they cant last in an oscar tank.

 

bump.....

the common pleco does not always eat the algae, eats left over food from the oscars some times. is there a different kind of pleco that would have more of an algae diet??? or something that has some decent size that would eat algae??

 

havent had a chance to respond lately.

as of last time i added some floating pond plants, and also a planted plant inside the aquarium. all is good so far. the oscars seem not to be paying them much attention and it has cleared the water up some.

just tested ammonia, its at about .25, almost zero. last time i did a water changes was about 2 weeks ago and about 25%. i dont have a nitrate tester. the tank is in front of a window so i know thats not helping (but it does look good i think) also the oscars are MESSY, i have my return from the sump spraying across the bottom but it stays kinda dirty down there. i have heard the bristlenose pleco has more of an algae diet. also i would not mind looking into those big snails if they dont munch on plants to much.

im trying to keep maintenance to a minimal, and let good filtration, good bacteria, and fish/clean up crew do the work.

 

ammonium is pretty much zero and its been a few weeks from the last water change (25%)

i could probably go more than a month if not a little longer before i would have to change the water because of ammonium. i do change the water tho to get the bottom cleaned with the syphone.

i have a 1,000gph sump that has lots of mechanical filtration along with biological filtration, with my return spraying across the bottom so it keeps the bottom some what clean.

in my opinion, large water changes are not needed, great filtration is. that is what has worked best for me.

the algae is not bad, you cant even see it unless you look real close, it just annoys me.

also i have heard the pleco is not a large biological load, the oscars on the other hand.....

 

finally an answer to my question and not everyone telling me to do water changes............HAHA. thanks buzz, and white devil.

dawn, the test kits are NOT out of date and are NOT the test stripes............

i dont have a tester for nitrates.......before i did a little research on it there other day, i never really knew about them. BUT nobody really mentioned nitrates either, people were saying to do water changes for ammonium, but that is ZERO.

i understand the need for water changes, and well as my oscars or getting bigger (they are not even near full grown) im seeing the need for increase in water changes. with that being said, i have had my own experience with not doing water changes and have had success. i know people with pond set ups that never do water changes, what is the difference there?

also i KNOW plecos produce alot of waste, but i have heard there waste is not that large of a bio load. if you have scientific answers on that, that would be cool.

and buzz, if i may ask, why do you clean one filter a week? seems like your washing away good bacteria.

i could be way off base with ALL of this. im eager to learn, and if you have scientific evidence on some of these things, that would be great. i enjoy this hobby very much.

 

again, i dont have a nitrate tester.......

what about a nitrate remover made out of an algae screen?? supposedly the algae removes the nitrate. if that works (i need to read more into it, maybe some of you guys know) then i would have my good bacteria that removes the ammonium (my test are always very low for that, so i know thats working) i could have the algae screen to remove the nitrates. also the algae screen promotes the algae growth on the screen and not so much on the tank (fixes another problem) thus as far as i know reducing water changes due to bad water conditions.

if there is other bad water conditions, let me know and i will look into it.

but i still have the waste and just overall messyness of the oscars. i have my return from the sump blowing across the bottom that helps keep the mess floating around and eventually picked up by my over flow. i still need another pump for that tho to help out more.

all of this is cutting down on my overall maintenance, and well i dont mind setting things up to cut down on maintenance.

maybe together we can work towards the goal. and also feel free to enlighten me on anything i am missin.

i dont mind doing some water changes, but im not trying to do HUGE water changes twice a week.


whitedevil. the gp is good. basic 3.5 pulley set up, can keep up with alot of cars around town (pulled on a 05 gt mustang the other day) 130k miles. transmission is showing wear. ol lady drives it more than i do, she LOVES it as a dd. cant really complain about it.

turbo is gonna be sweet, they always are.