Did our Oscar get too stressed?

[CMC]

I think the answer to this question is yes but I wanted see what y'all think.

Last weekend we did our bi-weekly water changes on our tanks. The next day on our oscar tank we noticed that the water temperature had shot up to 90-degrees . We unplugged the heater during the water change as usual and plugged it back in after the tank was filled up and didn't touch the thermostat. The thermostat was still set at 80-degrees but apparently the heater malfunctioned after we plugged it back in but we didn't notice it until the next day. We haven't been able to get it working right since (we just bought it a month ago) .

Anyway, as soon as we discovered that the water was so warm we unplugged the heater immediately and did small water changes during the day to bring the temp back down. By the end of the day we got it back to around 78-80 degrees.

The oscar actually seemed fine and acted normal while the water was so warm but the past two days it just stays at the bottom and hides behind a rock (not like it at all, it always swims around the top waiting for us to feed it pellets). We haven't bought a new heater yet but the temp has stayed at 78 degrees the past 2-3 days.

I know oscars are moody and have a tendancy to pout when upset but he has never acted this bad. He's also refusing to eat anything.

Could he have gotten very stressed from the water temp being so high and it didn't affect him until a couple of days later? We also did a complete water test and everything checks out normal.

Thanks!

 

[Jaded_Pulse]

Probably just sulking. I had to change the substrate in my 15gal & one of my colombian tetras got real sulky & wouldn't eat for 3 days & just hid but he's fine now. Tried him on some frozen bloodworms which he'd never had before & he's been eating again ever since lol. Fish can be moody little b*ggers lol. Just keep an eye on him & make sure he doesn't start showing any signs of illness. Otherwise, my only thing is - he is only little right now yeah? coz he can't live long in a 20 gal. Anyways, assuming you have bigger & better plans for his tank so goodluck with it all

 

[CMC]

He's about 3" long right now. The 20-gallon is temporary. My husband built a stand for a much larger tank for his permanent home. We're going to put him a 55-gallon soon. He's been in the 20-gallon for about a month or so and it's amazing how fast he has grown since he's been in there! Oscars are really cool fish

 

[Jaded_Pulse]

lol sounds awesome goodluck with it all!!

 

[CMC]

Thanks!

 

[Sky042]

the SAME exact thing happened to my oscar (I think they are rough on normal heaters. ) he got up to 96 degrees I lowered it down over about 2 hours. he sulked a little bit but after about 3 days and me throwing a few ghost shrimp in there he was completely back to normal.

Might I suggest changing heaters. I just added a Via Aqua Submersible titanium heater. It doesn't work like the glass ones and isn't susceptible to the abuse an oscar can give.

 

[CMC]

Thanks Sky. Yes, he's definately rough on everything in the tank. He only has one decoration, his rock that he hides behind sometimes. We can't keep anything else in there like plants and stuff because he'll rip them right out of the gravel.

A non-glass submersible heater sounds like a good idea. The one in there now is a glass Tetra Whisper and it sucks!

 

[Sky042]

Thanks Sky. Yes, he's definately rough on everything in the tank. He only has one decoration, his rock that he hides behind sometimes. We can't keep anything else in there like plants and stuff because he'll rip them right out of the gravel.

A non-glass submersible heater sounds like a good idea. The one in there now is a glass Tetra Whisper and it sucks!

the one I had in there was a glass penn-plax visi-therm. He battered it pretty good.

I got mine from big als' for about 18 bux. even has a remote heat probe and you set the temperature from a contoller that sits outside the tank.