# 55 gallon aggressive tank



## Gerber77 (Jan 10, 2006)

I want to do a 55 gallon aggressive tank. I want to have 2 medium oscars, 1 red devil, 1 firemouth, 1 pair of convicts, 1 jack dempsey, possibly a green texas cichlid. Crazy. Feeding will be awesome. Guppies are for feeding and breeding, nothing else.


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## goodie (Sep 2, 2005)

If you want all those your going to need a MUCH larger tank than 55gal. The firemouths and convicts are the only ones that stay under 10". The rest will grow 10" and over. 

Just using feeders isn't that great of an idea either.

Anyone else want to elaborate?


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## tamccain (Apr 15, 2006)

I agree with goodie, you are putting in way too much fish. You need at least 75 gallons for those two oscars. Trim your selection down to maybe an oscar, a couple convicts, and MAYBE the firemouth. That will probably be good for this tank. You DON"T want to over stock the tank or you will have nothing but problems


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## Fishfirst (Jan 24, 2005)

convicts can get pretty feisty when they pair up, I'd skip a couple of convicts and get one or none.


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## pureplecs (Jan 25, 2006)

Gerber77 said:


> I want to do a 55 gallon aggressive tank. I want to have 2 medium oscars, 1 red devil, 1 firemouth, 1 pair of convicts, 1 jack dempsey, possibly a green texas cichlid. Crazy. Feeding will be awesome. Guppies are for feeding and breeding, nothing else.


Please only put one oscar in, even then it really should even by itself have a larger tank than 55g... And a medium oscar does not stay medium for very long... have you seen how big these guys get? And they get that way FAST! (especially if you are feeding live food) IMO Oscars aren't aggressive, they will just suck up anything that is moving that can fit in it's mouth... they are actually big babies. (IME) If you wanted a tank with all that you listed above I would at least get a 125g.... 

Good luck with whatever you decide to do...:fish:


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## Georgia Peach (Sep 23, 2005)

An Oscar needs at least a 75 gal tank by himself.. there is no way all of those fish will thrive in a 55 gal


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## wildtiger (Jun 8, 2005)

Well everyone has elaborated on the fish, so I'll go into the food issue. Variety is the spice of life. Quite honestly guppies wouldn't be big enough for feeders for these types of fish. When you start looking at having to buy feeders regularly you then start looking at indroducing all kinds of nasties into your tank every time you risk buying unknown fish. They make several pelleted foods for large cichlids that are a complete diet and trust me, some will attack that food just as vigoriously as if it were alive. Next off for large fish you can look at making your own foods. There are several beef heart recipies floating around the net, I like this method because I can cut the food into the size I need. I know if I were kept in a tank that I wouldn't want to be fed the same thing day in and day out for my entire life.


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## goodie (Sep 2, 2005)

The importance of large weekly water changes is also a factor when feeding a high protein diet to messy carnivorous fish. More uneaten food that gets passed though the gills plus the waste that they create will foul water quickly.


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