Oscar tank, to vicious?

Question
Hello,

well the 1st thing i would like to say is thank you for answering many of our questions. you are very helpful and i really appreciate a great person like you.

to continue on, I have 2 questions.

Ok the 1st quest deals with the safety of my 3 oscars. Well, my oscars keep biting my aquarium heater. they keep biting the top. The heater is hard plastic. I constantly hear snapping noises, when i look at the tank its my oscars biting or try to eat the aquarium heater. lol i really never seen this, but they bite just about everything. even a little floating square feeding thing. i dont know what it is called, but they always bite that, and i got scared, so i decided to remove it.  but now they peck at the heater and the filter. i just like to know if that will harm the fish at any way.

next question is about all the debree i have at the bottom. I have a lot of debree (i know it is bad) my ammonia is a bit high as well. my nitrite and nitrate is low. so thats a sign of just a dirty tank. i am just curious. since i have a lot of debree and excess food at the bottom, how often should i do a water change. (my tank is cycling right now) my tank is only 2-3 weeks old and i dont want to mess up my cycle. and when i do a water change, should i add a full serving of the "cycle product" which is 8 capfuls for my entire tank? or should i just add the equal amount of the water i replaced? The brand is called Cycle. its a white bottle with bacteria inside. nitrifiers?

Answer
Hi william.   You don't want them messing with the heater as it can break and electrocute them all.  Get a couple of small plastic, brightly colored Waffle balls and put those in the tank...Using  small net try to get them to play with the balls instead of other tank ornaments.  They are probably looking to get some aggression out and have decided that fighting with each other is not good for anyone... or they may just be bored... Spend time with them since they are young and they will grow up being your best friend.  

MAINTENANCE:  Change 20% of the water weekly and GRAVEL VACUUM... failure to clean your gravel will result in dead fish.  The tank is going to cycle regardless... but it will get use to your water changes and not react so badly.  It is important to keep your tank clean for two reasons... the health of your fish and the fact that the tank water itself is an organism made up of millions of other organisms (including your fish) and chemical elements...think of it as one creature and that one creature needs to get use to your tank maintenance routine.  I hope this makes sense... but generally... the populations within your tank water will not react as dramatically when they get use to losing 20% of their populations each week...  I don't add chemicals to my tank to help it cycle... I think it just delays the natural process by which the tank water will cycle itself.   hope this helps... dave