I have a 29 gallon aquarium that will soon be all empty except for a brim. For those of you that dont know, a brim is a type of freshwater fish that is native to northcarolina. I caught him on a fishing pole about 2 or 3 years ago and put him, now hes quite big and has stopped growing, about or 7 inches long. He loves live minnows is quite friendly to his smaller tankmates right now. But when they move out i was thinking of putting a young oscar in with him, mabye 2. Does this sound wise?
Oscars
- Thread starter fishy45cory
- Start date
you get a no from me on adding an oscar to a 29 alone not to mention with another fish thats allready 7" long. personally id get a bigger tank for your brim as well. how bout a 90? you could throw your brim and an oscar in there. think how cool that would look in your house!
thats great you decided to raise a fish you caught. i allways thought a perch would look nice in a tank. you never really see interesting north american fish for sale at LFS.
thats great you decided to raise a fish you caught. i allways thought a perch would look nice in a tank. you never really see interesting north american fish for sale at LFS.
A Brim (Bream) is what we northerners call a Bluegill, Or a similar fish from the same family depending on who you talk to. I concurr with the fact that a 29 is not big enough for this fish with or without an oscar. They are really tough, so he may not have problems but he would be much happier in a big tank. There is little if any info on These fish for aquarium purposes, but I can tell you this from my experiences as a kid. The Bluegill has been peacefull in your tank because he has been in charge, and he isn't too hungry. They are awesome fish but most of them I ever put in an aquarium wrecked everything eventually. Common problem with Oscars as well if you aren't prepared for a big srong fish. I have always wanted to set up a big tank and put in some Bream and maybe even a bass and a channel cat. it would be awesome to see one in with an Oscar, and I think they would get along just fine. But unless someone has tried it and can say it's OK. I would ty it but I would be very attentive when I first put them together. Bream are an attitude fish, they fight harder pound for pound than almost any fish in the world. I have seen 6" bream protect their nest against some really big fish they don't back down and the don't quit. IMHO the Bluegill and sunfish here in the US have a lot of similar behaviors to the Cichlids in Central and South America. Obviously there are many scientific differences, but they remind me of each other a lot. Good luck.
Im glad somebody else knows what a bluegill is. I know the tanks a bit small, but ive already got a 10 gallon and a 40 gallon as well. So i dont know when im going to be able to get something as big as a 90 gallon. The brim or bluegill did used to be aggressive, in fact he killed another fish i had caught, a crappie, and he used to fight with the convict i had in there for a while, but he doesnt seem to mind the small fish. I deffinitly want to try putting an oscar in with him, so perhaps ill buy a baby and keep them in the 29, just long enough for me to get a bigger tank.
Good luck, and keep us posted. I also had another thought about the Crappie and the perch mentioned on another reply. Both of these fish go deep in the summer, and get pretty dormant. this is usually a result of water temps. I wonder if you could keep them in an aquarium with cooler water and make them Happy. BTW if you have never been to a Bass PRO Shop, try to make it to one. They have some pretty amazing tanks with North american fish, and could probably give you some pointers if you found the right person to talk to. All of their big stores have display tanks and I'm talking about thousands of gallons and full grown fish. The world headquarters has Largemouth bass over 17 lbs.
Just my opinion...
Bluegills, Bream are messy and need larger environments...
I could well be way 'out of line' on this, but it seems many LFS would sell these fish if they were good "tank" specimens for the average aquarist.
I hope others will respond to this...
(..I have kept them Bluegills (small) years ago, and found them not to be good within glass walls..)
On another note.. Oscars will kill the Bluegill(s) ..given time. It's not a good idea to have them in the same tank.
Bluegills, Bream are messy and need larger environments...
I could well be way 'out of line' on this, but it seems many LFS would sell these fish if they were good "tank" specimens for the average aquarist.
I hope others will respond to this...
(..I have kept them Bluegills (small) years ago, and found them not to be good within glass walls..)
On another note.. Oscars will kill the Bluegill(s) ..given time. It's not a good idea to have them in the same tank.
Last edited:
The bluegill used to be messy and spit all of its dried food out, but now it eats it without mess, and there is no mess of course when he eats live minnows. The bluegill will be sufficiently larger than the oscar. How big will the oscar be when it decides to kill it?
Go to www.Bassproshop.com, next time I get near one I'll take some pictures of the tanks. The website will give you all of their locations. I'm in with 125gJoe on this one, Bluegills are very messy, Oscars are too but Not quite as bad. With your Bluegill already being 7 inches, I personally think you won't need to worry about the Oscar killing him if you buy a smaller oscar, The oscar will outgrow him but they should have estabilished territories, and learned to get along by then. I wouldn't go below about 3 or 4 inch on the oscar because it could become a punching bag for the Bluegill. These recommendations stem on the premise that you will need a bigger tank to try any of this. Depending on how old the Bluegill is he may or may not get bigger. They ofton grow to fit their environment in the wild, and I have seen them in excess of 14 inches, Most of the time a 7 incher is considered big though. If I were going to try an Oscar in a tank with a 'gill I'd go somwhere well above 100 gal. and double up on filtration.
It's already been said......but that's a big NO for putting an oscar in a 29. It's a quadruple NO for putting 2 oscars in that tank with a fish that's already 7". Oscars grow around 1" per month and need lots of space. Before you know it they will out grow a 29 (if they live that long) and will really cause you some water quality problems within no time.