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URGENT: move the Oscar being beaten up or the one doing the beating?

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  • URGENT: move the Oscar being beaten up or the one doing the beating?

    just need a quick opinion. To move the one being beaten on or his dominant meanie roomate?

  • #2
    where are you going to put the refugee lol? also who is beating on him? what are ur options for alternate tankmates for either of them?
    140 New World Cichlids
    125 African Lakes Victoria and Malawi
    80 Lake Tanganyika (Burundi Frontosas)
    30 Pundamilia Neyerie Ruti Island group
    29 Tropical Semi Aggressive/Community
    And to think....in January it was just the 29...)

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    • #3
      there are 3 Oscars in a 125 gal. tank. 2 are about full grown, a little over a year that we've had them and raised from about 4-5 in". The 3rd is only about 6". The larger of the two big ones is in the last few days, beating the snot out of the other, which was the first one we ever bought and our favorite. They used to act like they were mating, but not anymore and the poor beaten on guy is all faded and sad looking and just runs away from his "buddy" and tries to get away, but the other guy keeps beating on him and following him around.

      and nevermind, for now, husband is totally po'd, because somehow this is my fault. These are "his" fish, see. Anyway, no tankmates for the beaten up guy, he's in a 55 by himself for now. And I've been told "if this fish dies, you can forget about doing any more of your own tanks". :furious:

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      • #4
        oscars are funny like that, at one time I had 5 in a 120g with 4 of them being abroung a foot long and one being about 6". the little guy got beat mercelissly, especially when a breeding pair formed in the big ones. it got so bad I had to get rid of 2 of them. move the victim, treat his tank w/ stress coat and let him grow a little. he'll be handling business in no time.
        ‎Haiku's are easy
        But sometimes they don't make sense
        Refrigerator

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        • #5
          I put melafix in, that's good enough for now, right? I don't have any stress coat on hand, just Prime, which we of course used on the water.

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          • #6
            Melafix should be all you need to do.. he / she will grow strong soon enough :)

            What fish do Jesper have
            180 WC T. Moorii Chilambo +1 Petro trewavasae.
            110
            Cyps, WC Xeno Spilopterus Kipili WC/F1/F2 T. sp red Kiku
            58 S. Decorus

            "The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people's money." -Margaret Thatcher

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            • #7
              melafix is just as good, it just costs like a buck more, lol. he'll be alright in time. do you have a lot of "hiding" places for them to retreat to. sometimes they just like a little personal space.
              ‎Haiku's are easy
              But sometimes they don't make sense
              Refrigerator

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              • #8
                also, I had told the DH that one day he'd have a problem if he chose to have more than one Oscar, but he didn't listen. I really hope this fish doesn't die. I just took down my 55 gal. planted tank I got tired of, and was hoping to start a 75 for Africans soon. :P

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                • #9
                  see, that's the crazy thing, they do have plenty of hiding places! There were 2 big pieces of driftwood in there and I tossed in my plants and left them floating and there is a rounded fake root jumble thing. crazy fish. Moved one of the pieces of driftwood in with "Biggie" the poor beaten up guy so he'd feel more secure and he's hiding under it.

                  Thanks!

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                  • #10
                    although they fight, I found that oscars tend to like to be with their own kind more than some other cichlids. groups of 3 or more are always best that way the aggression gets spread around. he'll be fine, good as new in a week or so.
                    ‎Haiku's are easy
                    But sometimes they don't make sense
                    Refrigerator

                    Comment


                    • #11
                      i would take out the aggressive one.
                      fishless

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                      • #12
                        Thanks! we might end up trying to find a home for the meanie. If not, what should we do, wait till this guy is all better and then move him back in to the big tank? Or should we just plan on him having this 55 all to himself permanently? He's pretty torn up, poor guy. It escalated in just the last 2 days and I'm busy with a newborn so I didn't realize how bad off he was till tonight.

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                        • #13
                          is the aggressive one mean to both of the others or just one? cause if it's just one you might have a pair formed and he's trying to pick off the competition
                          ‎Haiku's are easy
                          But sometimes they don't make sense
                          Refrigerator

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                          • #14
                            here's their story: we bought "Biggie" first. He's (or she, who knows?) a red Oscar. He was probably around 6-8" when we got him, now I'd guess around 10-12. Last summer, we brought home "Baby". Baby is a black & red tiger. Baby was around 6" at the time. He grew really fast and is now a bit bigger than Biggie. Last summer we also bought Pinky & Dinky - 2 albinos. We kept them in their own 28 gal. tank till they were big enough to go in with Baby & Biggie. They followed Biggie & Baby around like puppies after their parents. Everyone got along swimmingly. There are also a Dino Bichir and a CAE in this tank. Wormy & Sucky. They keep out of the way of the Oscars. 6 months or so ago, Dinky got swim bladder disease and kicked it. So we're down to the 3 Oscars & Wormy & Sucky. For quite a while last winter, it seemed that Biggie & Baby had decided to get married. They spent all their time clearing the bottom of the tank of rocks and swimming together. They did the open mouth kissy tuggy thing that supposedly means they're in love. Never laid any eggs that I saw, but I figured they're both still juvenile and it would take a while. It's only been a couple or three weeks since I last saw them nesting. But I had noticed at that time that Baby was being more aggressive. Maybe since he'd grown larger than Biggie? Anyway, he's been getting more persnickety for a while now and Biggie has always fought back until the last few days.

                            Okay, so last Thursday night, I decided I'd had it with my planted tank and dismantled it. I gave some of my fish to my neighbor and put the driftwood pieces in the Oscar tank. I put my blue gourami (4") in there and well, hoped for the best. She seems happy and they are ignoring her. I put in 4 rosy barbs that were really small because hubby likes to feed them live fish anyway, and I figured if the fish managed to elude the Oscars long enough, they'd get bigger eventually. Well, of course, they got picked off one at a time. Biggie & Baby both really went after the rosies and knocked over stuff and scattered rocks everywhere. Pinky caught one too, I think. They scratched themselves a couple times on the new driftwood or diving through the rocks on bottom to catch the fish. But it's not like that was the first time they'd had feeder fish. I only added in the 2 pieces of driftwood and my plants, they had had the fake root knot thing in there and other rocks and stuff and a smaller piece of driftwood. The driftwood is why the hubs is blaming me. Anyway, something changed in the dynamic, I guess, because yesterday and today, Baby would not leave Biggie alone, it really looked to me like he was trying to kill him. Today when I saw that Biggie's coloring had faded, I knew we had to move one of them.

                            So there you go. I guess they had marital problems and needed a separation? Can they ever be together again? Anyone seen a previously (seemingly) mated pair change like this? Is it my fault for putting in my larger pieces of driftwood? At first they seemed like they really liked having new things to swim under and hang out in.

                            This is really stinky. I was supposed to get to buy a new 75 sometime soon for my project, but now we'll have to set up the 55 for a perm home for Biggie most likely, which will mean we need to buy another filter for it and maybe a top. bleh

                            I like the fish, but honestly, Oscars were NOT my reason for getting into this hobby. SIGH

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                            • #15
                              OH and the aggressive one - Baby - is not mean to Pinky. Pinky's looking really fat and round in the belly lately. Hmmmmm ??????

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