CichlidFish.com - Fish That Think.

someone told me there may be fish you can keep with you'r "O" that are scavengers, that are too small to be bothered by the oscar...knowing my oscar ...even being 10 or 11 inches long...I cant imagine that she wouldn't inhale anything more than half an inch long. Any truth to this???

Well, yes and no. People keep "dither fish" with cichlids for a couple of reasons. One is that if you have some active fish swimming around, the cichlids might conclude that if the small ones arent getting attacked its OK for them to come out and swim around also. Another motive would be to reduce aggression between your cichlids if they have something else to attack that they can't really catch -- giant danios for example. The theory is that the aggression is deflected to the "target" fish. Sounds like it should work, but in my experience it doesn't. As for scavenging, plecos are a common choice, but they need to be big enough to not be massacred, and/or they need to have some hiding places for when your O's get in a snit. Generally speaking, anything small enough to be eaten sooner or later will be.

I actualy have a placo 17" and counting...I'm more worried about the "O" than the placo, I was just looking to liven up the tank some...what about silver dollers, are they OK with O's??

I had Silver dollars with my Oscar and it worked out great. they are disc shaped and hard to get into their mouths and are fast as lightning so the O can't catch them anyway..Get 3 or 4 as they do like to school together and hangout over rocks in a file.. They also chase each other and I enjoyed watching them at nite..My Oscar never messed with them, he was a good 12".. You need to make sure they are a good size before you add them in or the Oscar might try to eat them anyway..Just to see if he can..I dought thou that he can catch them.. Oscars get slow as they get as big as yours...