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for the past months ive been raising small cichlids.
albino oscar 6"
jack dempsey 5"
texas 3"

they will soon (i hope) to be in my 120usg with my oscar. but
like a couple of threads i posted before.

what would be the best way i could introduce them.

ive heard that i should take my oscar out and re-arrange the decor.

but after i do that and put everybody in, what is the best way i could prevent my oscar from beating everybody up?

Do the re arranging thing and put the smallest fish in first and put the oscar that is in the 120 in last.

Oscars arent that aggressive IMO. Do you have one oscars or two, The albino one and another oscar in the 120? Or just one albino in the 120?

Either way, take out the one in the tank and put him in a quarantine or big tuperware. The "tank" will need a heater and filter to hold him for up to one day.

Add the other fish, I would put the texas and the JD at the same time, then the oscar a day later.

IMO, rearranging the decor never helped for me.

You might want to put some dithers in there too, or just some feeder fish (that arent sick) to get he attention of the oscars.

Oscars arn't that aggressive and dont tend to take teritories they tend more to swim all over the shop(tank)thats why rearanging the tank might not work with oscars compared to other cichlids that establish teritories.

Best to have a divider in place so established fish will get used to new neighbor. Right now I have firemouth divided off from 2 oscars and 1 jack dempsey. After a period of time I will remove divider and cross my fingers.

how could i divide a tank thats 2' high
2' depth
4' long

Dividing it isnt the best. Current fish will establish new territories in the area they are in, and when the divider is removed, will attack the new fish that enters it.

I agree with everything Inko said except I would put all 4 fish in at the same time. This way none of them has a chance to establish any kind of territory before adding new fish.

how could i divide a tank thats 2' high

dividing the tank probably wouldn't work out as well in this situation as inko also pointed out. however if you ever need to divide a tank of that size all you need are 2 decent sized pvc pipes, ~4-6 suction cups, some eggcrate and aquarium sealant. I believe you drill holes into the sides of the pvc and add sealant to hold the suction cups in place. then you use the sealant and possibly even drill small holes to attach the eggcrate to the pvc pipes. the suction cups hold the divider in place against the side of the glass and the eggcrate divides the tank. this is a rough explanation and if you ever need to do this I can get you more detailed instructions.

Jason

my younger cichlids are pretty bold and im afraid they will try to stand up to an oscar that is twice their size.

and dont most cichlids like them lip lock?

because his mouth is 1" in diameter

and theirs are half that size . will this present a problem?

Lip locking is very common. Lip locking occurs when two fish fight for territory and the other doesnt want to back down. Basically theres always one winner, one loser.

My red devil, and oscar, commonly fight for territory. The red devil mouth is very small compared to the oscar, but they still lip lock. The red devil tends to bit hold of the oscars lip, while the oscar takes the whole upper lip of the red devil, or bottom lip.

Jason suggests to put all four fish in at once, which is a good idea. Just watch the fish carefully, and have some salt and melafix at hand.