effiefish

hi im new here need some help ihave 2 fish oscar and parrotfish for 1 year in a 80litres tank problem is i cant figure out there illnes oscar has a blury eye and cut white fins. the parrotfish looks as if his nose and mouth have been bitten away,this for 2 months other than that they have vitality.ihave to feed the parrot cant eat on its own.water is changed every week and in good condition. any advice.....

Gunnie

Welcome to FishLore! Oscars are great fish, but get really big, and grow pretty quickly their first year. Your tank needs to be at least around 300 liters for those oscars. And they can be quite the bully when they want to. My guess is the oscars are going after your parrot fish and they are fighting by lip locks. You did not post what your ammonia, nitrites, ph and nitrates are. Oscars produce a lot of waste, and you probably also have a water quality issue with those fish in that size tank. Please post your water parameters if you can, and we can go from there. I can't think of a better excuse to get a bigger tank than for your oscars!

effiefish

thanks so much for answering.my ph is 7.6 nitrite 0, nitrate 100 ammonia not quite sure...i think i was misunderstood, there is only 1 oscar about 14cm long the parrot smaller about 10cm is there still a problem? to tell you the truth it looks quite empty.do you think all this could be from water??i do a 20% waterchange every week idont know what else to do.hope to hear from you soon

Gunnie

For 1 oscar, the very minimum is 55 gallons, which would be about 220 liters. Whenever you decide to purchase a new fish, you should always try and get the right sized tank for that fish at its adult size. Oscars can get up to 14 inches and grow very fast the first year. Some months mine grew an inch a month! After the first year, they continue to grow but much more slowly. Your ammonia reading is very important because of the waste an oscar produces. Nitrates are less toxic than ammonia and nitrites, but still can be lethal at high dosages. You need to get your nitrates down to 20 or less. Try doing this by bumping up to 50% water changes weekly, and maybe add some live floating aquatic plants like anacharis to absorb some of the nitrates between water changes. You can dip the roots of some non-aquatic plants in your filter box to do this also. Then post back with how your tank is doing. We'd love to see pictures!