My Oscar Setup

Hey Larch! Great looking setup there. Your Oscar is looking great. For the background why don't you make/buy an artificial rock background, they look great and I think you can also incorporate it into a filter.

I did the exact same thing that you have done with the powerhead filter, my pump is a bit bigger than yours, I have a 3000 l/h and a 2400 l/h, I tossed the green scouring pads away and kept the plastic balls, I cut up filter floss in rectangles and rolled it round to fit nice and snugly, then after a few hours I noticed a horrible humming sound coming from the filters, turned them off, took them out for a visual and found that the filterfloss fibres was being pulled in by the pump and it was getting caught in the impellers, so I put in about 5 or 6 balls at the top to stop the floss getting caught in the pump, works like a charm and I don't ever clean the filter floss, it is so cheap when it comes time for cleaning I just toss the old and replace with new. Check it out, if it looks like the floss is being sucked in by the pump just stick in a couple of the plastic balls it came with.

 

Yeah my canister does 1100 liters and my power head does around 700 liters so more than enough filtration for a 250 liter tank and a single Oscar fish, and way ahead of you on the filter wool blocking the impeller. I put together 1 + 1 before the crap hit the fan hahaha.

 

Literally!!!

 

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Cleaned my canister filter for the first time today, bought a big plastic bath for the purpose and I use the water that was in it +-20 liters to clean everything then filled it with some tank water again and started it up.

 

How old is the filter?
Is it not too soon to be cleaning it?

 

This weekend it would have been running about 2 months without being cleaned, and by cleaning I mean only washing everything off with tank water and putting it back together again.

 

So I have been messing around with different grades of filter wool for my internal filter to see how much of an effect it will have on my water clarity and I finally found the correct combination which gives me nice crystal clear water, I have also re-arranged the tank one last time and I think its more pleasing to the eye and easier to clean around lol.

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I am also extremely happy with how my plants are doing considering I dont give them much attention I figured the Oscar would have destroyed them by name but he haunt touched a single plant yet.

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I think I have pretty much done all I want for my Oscar setup for now maybe in the future do some small improvements but for now the tank can take care of itself with only me feeding and cleaning.

 

Just a quick update seems I had a power surge and or spike which broke my digital timer which was controlling my tanks lights so now I have a expensive brick. Swapped it out with my old faithful analogue timer. Also my heater seemed to have given up the ghost due to this as its temperature control has stopped working. Oddly enough all the surge protection plugs and extensions show no signs of having taken a load of electricity.

 

So I bought a new heater today to replace the faulty one with the new one and I dismantled the old one too see what the issue is, not that it really matters since heaters are pretty cheap. But I believe if you can fix something and use it again you save yourself some cash. But alas this heater has gone were all good heaters go when they die.

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Seems the knob which is connected to the thread (which has buckled and melted) that controls the on/off switch of the heater at certain temperatures so now the heater is permanently stuck on 28. I can fix it and set it permanently to something lower but it would mean breaking the rubber seal on top to get it fixed and re-sealing it with silicon. Which can be iffy so I wont chance it.

 

I'm still amazed at how your Oscar hasn't gone ape on your plants yet. He must be very well fed!

It's a nice change to see one with a bit of greenery in the tank, they're usually in drab, colourless tanks

 

His Oscar is very well fed! As far as i know and seen! Spoiled one if i may say

 

yep i agree!! he seems so well behaved

btw, for anubias, u have to plant the root structure above the subsrate to do well..

attach them to rocks or driftwood..

very nice and clean tank though

 

Well that pretty much has changed now, after I got back from a evening with the girlfriend he decided to shred and dig up all 8 of my amazon plants and dug up all of the Anubia and moved the 1KG piece of wood to the one corner of the tank hurting himself in the process. So I cleaned and took out everything and this is what it looks like:

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He does not seem to mind much. Now he just moves around the gravel all around the tank like a excavator.

Sometimes I think he eats better than I do....

Thanks its one thing I pride myself on, keeping it clean less fish or water issues.

Anyway...

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I took a piece of plastic tubing and two rubber suckers and raised the outlet of the powerhead (Since I cant raise it higher) so it matches the waters surface creating some nice water flow in the tank.

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What my little DIY setup looks like from above.

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I swapped the intake and out take of the canister filter around and raised them both higher, so now with the power head it creates a nice whirlpool effect. The waste that does not get sucked up gets trapped on the bottom (middle) of the tank because of the whirlpool effect making it easy to clean up with a net.

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he looks so lonely.. i'd get him a pal..

 

Ahaha he really isn't hey they really dont need other fish for companionship, if I want to get him a friend I would need a minimum of a 500liter tank for two Oscars a 250liter is way to small for two full grown fish.

 

Do you have any plans for decorations?

 

This is what it used to look like before he decided to go rambo:

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I dont know if I would ever put plastic plants in my tank I think even the Oscar would be un-happy if I ever put something as kitch as plastic plants in his tank hahahah.

 

LOL, but what about getting him some toys to play with...(I'm not implying live goldfish :bigsmile

My brothers friend had a Silver dollar and Oscar tank, I remember how he used to chuck sterilised plastic toys in the tank for the O's to move around and play with.

 

I still need to get him a ping pong ball but currently he plays with a 2 liter bottle caps that floats around the tank.

 

That must be the cutest thing ever! Get him a Rubber Ducky.