Where do I start?

Question
I am almost 40 and very much enjoy animals of any kind. I currently have 2 dogs 4 cats 2 turtles, and about 1 year ago I purchased a 29 gallon aquarium kit and decided it would be fun    
to keep some fish. I was not disappointed. Anyway here is the question I have friends who have had Oscars and have said they were great fish. I have been doing allot of research and find the amount of information overwhelming and in allot of cases contradicting. How wold you recommend I start, and what tank size and and equipment would you suggest I start with. any help on this matter would be greatly appreciated. Thank you

Answer
HiYa!

Ok your right about there being alot of conflicting information out there about O's and how to keep them etc. Rule of thumb is that you need a 55gallon to keep one. HOWEVER having said that, a 55gallon is only a 4ft tank and that is not enough swimming room for an adult O. In my opinion and most others who keep O's, you need a minimum of a 100gallon, which is 6ft, this allows for ample swimming space for when they get bigger and trust me they will, they are quite fast growers and your baby O will be an adult O in no time.

As for equipment to give you an idea of filtration I will give you a breakdown of our two tanks that we have that house our O's. Our first tank is a 100gallon and in that we have two roughly 8 inch Albino O's. We also have a blue acara, a severum, 2 bristlenoses (plus some recently discovered babies), a 4inch red tailed black shark and some barbs. In that tank, we have a internal filter that turns over 2000litres an hour plus the largest AquaClear hang on back filter you can get. We do 25% water changes once a week and clean the internal on alternative weeks and clean the hang on back roughly once a month.

Our other tank that houses O's is a 180gallon, its a 6ft x 2ft x 2ft. In that we have two salmontail catfish (they are catfish which are native to the Northern Territory in Australia), one is about 8 inches and the other is about 14 inches long and they still have heaps of growing to do. We have two 7 inch O's, a tiger and a red, 4 Silver Dollars, a Black Belt and a Salvini. In this tank we have a internal filter that turns over 2000litres and hour, a small internal cylinder filter (I'm unsure how many litres an hour this does but I think its something like 200) plus a external cannister filter that turns over 1200 litres an hour. We clean the cannister once every 3 months and the other two filters get rotated on a weekly basis, one gets cleaned one week, the other, the following week.

The key to Oscar's, is making sure they have enough swimming space and that they have good filtration. They are messy eaters and messy fish so good filtration is a must. Feed them a varied diet and sit back and enjoy, they are very owner involved and recognise who feeds them (they know when my husband gets home from work each night that they are going to get fed, as soon as they see him, they all start doing their begging dance).

Oscars are very rewarding fish to own but do beware they can also be the moodiest fussiest fish going as well, they go through sulking periods regularly if they don't like something especially once they hit their 'teenage' years and if they don't like how you have set the tank up, they will have no problem helping you redecorate!!

Hope this helps, if you need any more info, just drop me a line!

Cheers! Rach