mattcogdell

hey guys, need so help and info. my oscar is getting slugish kinda layin on the bottom and curling up. he has kinda lost some of his color. i went to the pet store and they said my water was perfect. but idk wat is the matter with him.

mathas

Unfortunately, we're probably going to need a bit more information to figure out what's wrong with your oscar.

The first helpful thing will be to know what your water parameters are. I wouldn't necessarily trust the pet store's test, but rather I'd suggest you invest in a good liquid test kit like the API Freshwater Master Kit and do your own tests.

Also, what has the oscar's diet looked like lately? Have you noticed any symptoms of Hole in the Head disease? Are any of the other fish in the tank showing signs of illness?

mattcogdell

he is livin wit a alge ater 3in and a bala shark 1.5 in. he is about 1.5 inches. the temp is 80. he has a cave to hide in and other rocks. i put a stone in there to pump more oxygen into the water just to help. and he isn't shy i have had him for about a month and the last oscar i had for that same period of time had those symthems and then died. i really dont wan2 be out another 12 bucks. and lastly he is livin in a 55

Emory

When you say that you water was tested... what did they test for and what were those results?

I can see by your info that you don't know about the nitrogen cycle. You can start to learn about that here.

In your info section the age of your tank is listed as 3 to 4. What unit of measurement are you using? Days? Years? Months? Weeks? Decades?

Specific details will help us to help you!

btw, welcome to fishlore! The folks here are great and very informative.

mattcogdell

idk they told me my water was good so i figured it was all good. months

Shawnie

welcome to fishlore!

Until you can get your own test kit, go to the fishstore and get some prime or stress coat + (only the plus) and do a 50% water change with one of those added....its probably ammonia as they are huge waste producers...the oscar with your pleco will give you lots of waste so the water change wont hurt until you can get your test kit...id do 50% first day then 30% for each day after...getting the test kit that mathas suggested will save you alot of aggrivation goodluck!

mathas

If you've lost another oscar under the same circumstances, I think we can rule out you being unlucky enough to have just purchased a sick fish. In order to help figure out what the underlying problem is, I'll reiterate a few unanswered questions and add a couple more:

What has the oscar's diet looked like lately?

Have you noticed any symptoms of Hole in the Head disease?

Are any of the other fish in the tank showing signs of illness?

What type of filter(s) do you have on the tank?

What does your water change schedule look like?

pepetj

I keep two Tiger Oscars, now paired-off. One of them I got at 5". Same symptoms you describe. In my case it was stress. I managed it by removing the Oscar to a Hospital tank, where I simulated shallow water, keep the lights off, fed her (now I know is a female) sparingly and let her there for a couple of days.

Please check for yourself the water parameters (ammonia, nitrite, nitrates, pH). If your cycle got disturbed for whatever reason (e.g. accidental overfeeding, overcleaning filter media and substrate, lacking behind in water changes) all your fish, not only the baby Oscar, could be in trouble

I know your fishies are all small sized and for the moment your tank size seems big enough. It won't be suitable for all of them once your fish grow. Most forums info suggest keeping one Oscar, no tankmates, in a 55gal, with at least HOB filtration rated a 10+ times your tank volume per hour, but that's not the problem right now.

I do have some questions of actual tankmates: your aquarium info says Jack Dempsey -if that is correct, what size?-, the algae eater at this point seems safe to me but the channel cat and pelico (is it a pleco?)-what exactly are these fish, what size?.

The pale colours are not unusual but probably suggests either that your fish is sick or just that something is disturbing him/her, maybe a tankmate bullying at him/her? or tank lights too bright?

Young Oscars are usually active, but they tend to sulk when bothered. How long has your baby Oscar been behaving like this? If only a day or two it could be usual behavior due to stress. I would begin by placing him/her in a 10 gal tank for a day or two, just to observe and intervene if needed to; if you don't have a spare cycled tank, consider using egg-crate and separate him/her from other fish in your 55gal.

Pepe
Santo Domingo

mattcogdell

well in the 55 now, its divided into 2 parts half in half. the alge eater with the famale
JD(3in) and male jd(1.5in). and the oscar in the other half by him self. it has be sulking for about 1 1/2 weeks.

Fish_wise_man

Try getting a stress coat thing that helps get rid of the stress.

I can help a little bit, but if you have more information for me. I can help a lot more.

You don't have any live plants do you? because since you said that you have an air pump to get some oxygen moving around... you should probably turn off the air pump, or keep it very low.

Be warned... live plants produce oxygen too.. and along with an air pump, you will be agitating the oxygen too much and that can cause your fish to be stressed out..

If you have a long of aquarium salt in your water.. try and taste the water to see how much salt there is..

Try and do a water change every day. 15% twice a day should be good.

Also RO water is the best for fishes since oscars like it.

Hard water is used only for African Cichlids... so yeah

If you have a quarantine tank, then that would be best for your little Oscar friend. It takes some time for your oscar to get rid of the stress.

I hope that helps

Emory

Please don't taste the water. You can check the salinity of the water by using a device such as this.

mathas

I realize it's been a week since the OP even visited the forum, let alone this thread, but on the off chance there is still a problem with the oscar... if you want help, you're going to have to answer the questions that have been asked. We can't magically guess what's wrong with the fish; we need information, which is why we ask questions.


What makes you say that? If anything, fish are more likely to stress from there not being enough oxygen in the water than from too much.

But even if the water is oxygen-saturated to the point where it cannot hold any more oxygen, the oxygen produced by the plants would just appear as little bubbles. This effect is often called "pearling", and can be seen in many high-tech planted tanks. It is neither harmful nor stressful for fish.

First off, if there's enough salt in the water of a freshwater tank to taste, there's too much. Second, as Emory pointed out, there are easier ways to test salinity.

But ignoring that, a taste test would only be beneficial with some type of reference point. Do you know what normal aquarium water tastes like? Do you know what "too much" salt tastes like? Is your tongue actually capable of determining where on the normal/excessive scale a random taste falls with any real consistency? I can't speak for you, but I would guess all of those questions would be answered with a "no" for the vast majority of fishkeepers out there, myself included.

And all that said, if the OP's "algae eater" is a plecostomus, I would hope there is no salt at all in tank, let alone enough to taste... plecos do not deal well with salt.