Oscar fish beaten up by sucker fish??????

Question
My sucker fish seems to be attacking my Tiger Oscar fish.  I have only recently put two Oscar fish in my tank and they are getting attacked.  The sucker fish I have had for 2 years and it used to live with a goldfish (that lasted 2 years also) and some other similar small fish.  After a move a few months ago I lost my other fish but the sucker fish survived.  I followed PetSmart advice and reconditioned my tank and let it set up for a month before adding the oscars...they are 2 inch long right now and came in at about 1.5 inches about 1 month ago.  Is this normal behaviour as it has the oscars getting white battle marks....should I seperate the sucker fish and the oscars?

Answer
Hi Penny,
 Are you feeding your sucker fish?   Many people mistakenly think that they do not have to feed their sucker fish, that it will just eat "stuff" on the bottom of the tank.  If you do that, it will attempt to eat the other fish.   You need to be providing your sucker with sinking algae wafers.  If you do that, it is much less likely to attack your oscars.  

-- Ron
  rcoleman@cichlidresearch.com
  Cichlid Research Home Page <http://cichlidresearch.com>