Tank Advice

[Kingy]

Hi All,

We are relatively new to the fish game and need some advice on tank maintenance.

we have an Oscar (about 4inches at present), curently in a 7 gallon tank (i know how small this is, we are getting him a new home on the weekend ). we have the filter running at its highest level and have been changing about 1/3 of his water evey 3 or so days. is there anything else we should be doing for the tank? we are putting in the extra chemicals that are required.

we have recently started leaving his fluro light off at all times, as it was pretty obvious he didnt like it, however have noticed the water today has a green tinge (i am assuming algae?). Would this be due to the light having been left off? or just a build up from not doing anything additional to what we have so far?

also, having the oscar, is gravel appropriate for the bottom of the tank? i am noticing a lot of his waste mixed in the gravel, any advice on how we get that out of there for him?

if anyone has advice on the best substrate, ornaments and cleaning / maintenance practices for one, possibly two Oscars in a 4 or 6 foot tank, any advice would be greatly appreciated. if we can get the new tank established as best we can to start with, im hoping it will mean less disturbance for our litte champ in the future.

I really appreciate any advice anyone can give me.

Many thanks,

Michael

[mcloughlin2]

You sound like your doing everything you can for the oscars well being. I'm assuming that your oscar doesn't like the light as it is such a small tank so the instensity may be too bright. In a larger tank I've found oscars don't really care whether the light is on or off. The algae is most likely due to either the wrong fluoro light or the the tank is getting to much natural sunlight.

You really need to perform gravel cleans on all tanks to remove waste from the gravel. Oscars are messy fish so you will need to perform a water change at least once per week.

With ornaments or other objects in the tank, they need to be either very heavy or well secured as the oscars WILL re-arrange the tank no matter what you do. So before you place any rocks in the tank place some egg crate down first and then place the rocks on this so they can't dig under the rock and collapse them. Try to refrain from stacking rocks in piles, if you would like caves buy some large flower pots.

[genetik_defekt]

Oscars get big, so make sure you get a big tank. Your next tank it should be the biggest you can afford. My oscars when they passed were 14 and 15 inches. As said above you need to clean the gravel with a tank siphon/ gravel cleaner. like this

http://www.aquariumproducts.com.au/gravel_cleaners.php

As stated above if you have the wrong fluro or the tank is sitting in front of a window then this will cause algal blooms. Also if you get a bigger tank ( i would consider a 5x2x2 for an oscar) you will not need to do water changes every week, once a fornight for a few fish E.G Your oscar or two and a few silver dollars is fine. small bio loads are sufficiently taken care of with good filtration. If your oscar doesnt look happy then he probably is'nt, get yourself a nice tank and good filter and welcome to the hobby.

If a new tank is not in the budget then why not scour the classifieds on the forum good luck.

Also forget plants they get torn up and consistantly moved.

[mcloughlin2]

Gravel cleans are a weekly job if you keep oscars.