CichlidFish.com - Fish That Think.

Hey guys,

I have a 125 gallon tank I recently establish as my other tank was getting out grown. Its all working out well, except I need some help polishing out a few details.

I have 4 tin barbs I rescued from my local pet center pretty good size and heard work well with Oscars. Cleaning and what not.

Now I also had 2 jack dempsey's in the tank that were almost in separable. One was bigger than the other maybe a third bigger, roughly 4 inches in size.

Well my other Oscar had a unfortnate feeder accident (Loved that fish), but that's another story and a lesson learned. Anyways I got myself a New Oscar (Which is rougly the same size as the dempsey) for my tank looks very similiar to icon in the corner. I introduced him and the big dempsey started getting incredible violent, which is odd there not that big and he has always been very docile and never really harmed anybody. The tank is huge for there sizes right now, but I don't understand why he would go out hunting for the O?

So I thought I would let them work through there issues and establish a pecking order, but once the Oscar started showing signs of battery I removed the hostile dempsey and placed him in my 25 gallon for the time. Maybe tell the Oscar gets more size on him.

So my question is the dempsy going to beable to be placed back in the tank??
and do you think I should get more tank mates? My tanks dimensions are 6' x 1 1/2' , 1 1/2'.

Thanks guys Take it easy

Hi, and welcome to the forum!  With 4 tinfoils, 2 Dempseys, and an Oscar, you're close to being maxed out once they all grow up.  Hard to tell how the hostile Dempsey issue is going to work out.  There are a couple of things you can try that might (or might not) help.  First, use rocks or driftwood, or something to break the tank up into territories.  While you're doing that, try to provide a couple of caves/hiding places for the Dempseys.  Might make them less cranky.  On another front, try using a divider (you can make one out of egg-crate) to separate the Oscar from the JD's until they seem comfortable with one another.  You might have to keep it in place till the Oscar puts on some size.  Good luck!