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I have a 3 inch "Common Oscar" in my 55 gal and am looking for a nice cat to go in there with him,can a Pictus live his life out in a 55 gal tank??Thanks guys...P.S.about how big do 1 of these guys get??

Read the CotM article for info regarding size and husbandry.

As for keeping them with oscars, read this.

Thanks for your help once again Silurus,I think that i may go with a 4-line cat as they tend to put on some size and seem to be able to take care of themselves.

Astronotus ocellatus (Oscar) in a 55???

That's BAD husbandry; this species grows to about 1 foot in length and bulky as well....it has NO business in a 55.

They do grow to a foot,but that takes a few years.Hopefully i will upgrade by then.

This particular "attitude" is severely frowned upon on this forum!
Esp with keeping big cats (like Red Tails, or Tiger Shovelnoses) in small tanks, but IMO any fish, even a cichlid, should have the same proper care as a catfish.

It's like, " well we lock you up in this 2x3m cell, BUT we plan to build a bigger prison, somewhere in the future, if we feel like it"

It's NOT fishkeeping IMO.

Take it easy,take it easy.so i guess i should turn my Oscar in to my local fish shop and hope that someone will buy him so that he can be fed and cared for as well as i do.And then what do you suggest i put in my tank??

nick.c wrote:Take it easy,take it easy.so i guess i should turn my Oscar in to my local fish shop and hope that someone will buy him so that he can be fed and cared for as well as i do.And then what do you suggest i put in my tank??

Splendid, you've got the message... Taking the fish back to the shop is a good idea, because chances are that it's now big enough that the next customer realizes that this fish will not fit in a 55g tank [wishfull thinking, but still... ]. The other option is to get a 200g or so tank for this fish, and get it a mate (preferrably opposite sex).

As for what you want to keep in a 55g tank, there's many options. What I like may not be what you like. I suggest you go to your local shop, look at the fish there. Figure out some 5-10 favourites, and then figure out which of these fish are suitable fish for a 55g tank. [Anything that grows significantly larger than 6" would NOT be suitable, as the tank should be at least 4L x 2L x 2L, where L is the length of the fish]. Aside from size, you also need to consider:
1. What's the ideal water conditions for this fish (temp, hardness and pH).
2. How does this fish behave towards the other fish that you may have/want to keep?

Here's some ideas that come to my mind.
The catfish that started this conversation, would be a good candidate. Three to five of those would be a good group, as they like each others company.

A small pleco variety, such as Common Bristlenose would be a good house-keeping fish, making sure you'll never need to clean algae again [at least if you get two or three of them].

A shoal of Corydoras is a nice addition to any tank. Make sure you get at least 5 of one kind.

Non-catfish species: There are many tetras that are beautiful fish and would be suitable as companions with the above mentioned, as long as you choose some of the larger varieties, as the pictus will consider small tetras as a midnight snack. These would be roughly the same biotope as well [as long as they aren't Congo tetras, or any other specie from Africa].

Peaceful c-ichlids would also go well, Rams (Butterfly/Dwarf cichlids) for example. Just don't expect them to breed successfully together with the Pictus cats, as the pictus will rob eggs and eat the fry without hesitation.

If you don't have Pictus cats, you could also keep Angel-fish, which is a peaceful c-ichlid specie, but Angel's don't go well with Pictus cats.

There's literally thousands of fish that coule be in your tank, but the above mentioned ones are at least from the same continent, so wouldn't completely break the biotope.

Make sure that you don't buy too many fish at one time, as this puts stress on the filter system, and can cause bad things to happen...

--
Mats

MatsP wrote: The other option is to get a 200g or so tank for this fish [oscar], and get it a mate (preferrably opposite sex).

I think a female would be ok (not fine) in a 55, but a 75 would be fine for a male or female (not a pair). 200gs for an oscar?

Some of you guys need to get out of the "thought police" role.

An Oscar would be fine in a 55G for quite a while before you would need to upgrade, a 3" fish isnt going to feel cramped.

Think some of you need to get a grip and not put anyone down who doesnt have tanks as massive as you want.

Dear oh dear...

Ben

Although you never know exactly what another persons intentions are, I myself can speak from experience that even with the best will in the world, these plans don't always get put into practice.

Twice I have been guilty of it myself. When I was 15 (before the days of PC) i bought a baby giraffe cat and kept him happily in a three foot tank for over a year. I knew that he would need a much bigger tank soon, but I couldn't afford the new tank, and it wasn't convenient at that time. He was already too big and the poor thing died.

Then i bought a perruno, which also died due to exactly the same reason.

I can't speak for Sid, but perhaps the same has happened to him.

We can offer this advice because we have experience.

I've learnt from my mistakes, now i would never consider purchasing a fish unless i own the equipment to house it.

I wouldn't hesitate to offer this advice to anyone else.

Good info to know. I have read in one of those intro to freshwater aquariums books that it's possible to keep 2 oscars in a 55!

racoll wrote:I've learnt from my mistakes, now i would never consider purchasing a fish unless i own the equipment to house it.

This is the rule I've been trying to get across, but I haven't put it as succinctly as you just did...

I also told this, in my own words, to my 10 year-old nefue(sp?) that I just helped set up his first little tank: Get the big tank first, then the fish that goes in it. Then you don't get any surprises down the line [because you spent the money on something else, or because you "forgot", or in his case, "parents don't allow a bigger tank", in our cases "girlfriend don't allow bigger/another tnak"].

You CAN keep two Oscar in a 55g tank. They probably won't die until they are several years old, but they won't reach their full potential in growth... It's not a suitable tank for a fish that can, quite easily, reach beyond a foot in length, to be in a tank were the shortest side is about 13". If you're 6' long, how would you like to live in a house where the shortest side is 6'6"?

I feel very strongly about this subject, and I don't think it's WRONG to tell people that the fish they are keeping will need a bigger space. As far as I know, Oscars aren't exactly slow-growing fish either. They may not reach a foot in their first year, but they certainly grow quite rapidly if they are looked after correctly.

--
Mats

I can relate to exactly the same thing, although the fish didn't die.

one of the first really huge monsters was a by-catch: a baby Pterodoras wich I raised from 2" (it got in the LFS with Platydoras).
this lil' fella grew and grew and grew. I was very happy with him, didn't know what it was (except obvious a Dorad!) for quite some time, and then found out it was P granulosus....wich should reach about 30 cm or so.
HA
that's OK, it's in a 132G tank, no worries, let's find him a mate, and so I did.
the 2 1foot-long monsters grazed the tank, ate all the Cryptocorynes, the Giant Vals, even some of the Anubias, but what a display it was: my friends all liked my two "baby Whales' they were very visible when I fed peas or spinach.

Then I got around this place and a few GOOD books......3 feet OUCH!

No WAY I could EVER get a tank large enough for them, ever....they had to go. They went to a whole-sale importer/exporter and they were sold pretty fast, but I missed them, really.

The next fish wich was too big was a baby Giraffe cat wich I adopted from a friend who got a few; but the big un got overly territorial; so I adopted the smallest one. he has been in my 132G for a long time (it has been turned into a Tanganyikan setup for years; the Pterodoras where in when it still was a riverine/bogwood setup), happily digging and re-arranging the tank, uprouting plants and rocks.

This one too grew and grew and grew, until I could see that he couldn't properly move around, also about 1 foot in length. I knew how big they could get this time; anything between 50cm and 1 meter, depending on country and place/biotope of origin.
he now lives in a 1000L tank, has passed the 1 foot length for quite a bit; he's healthy and a lot happier in this twice as big tank.

perhaps not as big as should be, but still a lot better than where he was.

I hate it to see fish go; hence my strong advice for keeping fish in small tanks; you can get attached to a big catfish, and yes, they WILL grow and grow and grow......