Wild Oscar and a Texas

[caseycosa]

These are the only two fish that I have now. Somehow, all the other ciclid in the tank have been killed. I usually wake up in the morning and find the dead fish floating.

My question is: which one of these fish is doing the killing?

From what I know, the texas is the more aggressive fish. The texas is only 4' and the oscar is about 7". The interesting thing is that when it is feeding time, the texas will go hide while the oscar can't hardly wait for me to drop the food in. Sometimes the oscar will jump out of the water and bite my finger!

Now that they are the only two left, they engage in a jousting position where they face off and open their mouths to one another while moving close then backing off. What is this behavior? It seems like the Oscar instigates it, but the texas doesn't back down even though it is almost half the oscars size. Every once in a while I will see the oscar run like hell from the texas, but mostly the Texas is in the middle of the tank while the texas hides. Any help or understanding would be appreciated.

Thank you, Casey

 

[ChilDawg]

What size tank?

What was killed?

Did you find the bodies?

Sorry that these are crass questions, but I would need them to make a diagnosis as to which fish is killing and possibly as to why.

 

[DarthV]

I don't think keeping an oscar and a texas in anything less than say a 125gal tank will work. The texas is now probably only starting to get to breeding size, so I will bet that it should start to become much more aggressive in the very near future.

 

[peifc]

Texas gets aggressive as it gets older. Texas also can get as big as 12" even though it isn't a fast grower, but it can hold his ground without any problem. My Herichthys Carpinte already very aggressive, and she is only 1.75". You have to monitor the Texas more closely to see how his behavior has changed in the last few weeks.

The best time to catch their bad behavior in my experience is to have the light off.

 

[caseycosa]

ChilDawg- The tank is 40 gal. The dead include: The other texas(purchased at the same time and the same size), two large danyo(starter fish used to prepare the water), and the other oscar(also the same size). Yes, I found the bodies, they were all floating and were white in color.

DarthV and peifc- Thanks for the info about the texas, I really didn't know that she could be so aggresive.

 

[wayne]

These fish have territories of several square metres in the wild, you will eventually have problems with just those 2 in a tank that small.

 

[DarthV]

Your 40gal tank is too small for either the Texas or Oscar. You should either get a larger tank ASAP or take your fish back tot he store and purchase more appropriate sized cichlids for your tank.

 

[caseycosa]

Ok, I'll take the fish back to the store. Any suggestions about which ciclid can live in a 40 gal tank, & hopefully get along.

 

[stoopid]

Most smaller (3-4") cichlids can live together in a 30g, 36" of running room is the key/lenth of the tank. I have (2) 4" cichlids from different lakes in mine, and although they're not buddies, they respect each other and rarely fight.

 

[caseycosa]

What happens when those 4" grow??