I made a serious mistake yesterday afternoon, after doing a 70% w/c on my Oscar tank, I was just setting the hose up to re-fill when my little boy had a nosebleed and had to go and see to him, Id set the temperature sort of (mixer tap) but didnt go back to check it as normal because I was busy. 20 minutes later went back and it was done filling, so carried on with some other things, then went to put the filter spraybar to its normal position and noticed the temperature of the water was freezing well below 10c, obviously the cold water had overtaken the hot out the boiler and basically just filled from cold 
My oscars and plec were lying motionless on the bottom of the tank.
I quickly set up the hose again to drain 50% out and re-filled with entirely hot to raise the temp back to around 25c, but the fish werent moving, after a long night and still no improvement this morning, I decided to put some warm water (around 35c) in a bucket and picked up the oscars and put them in, along with an internal filter to move the water over their gills. I thought the plec was dead as he didnt seem to be breathing at all, but when I netted him out, noticed his mouth moving a bit and quickly put him in the bucket too. Within minutes the plec was darting around and coming back to life, the Oscars however werent doing anything, no gill movement, no mouth movement nothing.
After 30 minutes or so, I put the plec back in the tank as he was getting agitated in the bucket. I then spent another hour holding the oscars upright in the water flow, cupping out the water and putting warmer back in. Slowly they started to recover until they were obviously getting stressed from my holding them and I put them back in the tank. For a while they lay there, although upright, not moving but gasping.
Over the last four hours, its a miracle, not only have the started swimming around again, but they have also taken some food, Im amazed, I really thought they were dead, to the point where I was ready with a bag to put them in and put in the bin.
All 3 fish are now doing well, you wouldnt know anything had happened, they are slightly quiet compared to normal and the oscars have serious diahorrea (I assume from the shock?) but Ive never seen a recovery like it from fish. Im hoping they have no serious long term damage from this.
Thank you Santa (or god)
My oscars and plec were lying motionless on the bottom of the tank.I quickly set up the hose again to drain 50% out and re-filled with entirely hot to raise the temp back to around 25c, but the fish werent moving, after a long night and still no improvement this morning, I decided to put some warm water (around 35c) in a bucket and picked up the oscars and put them in, along with an internal filter to move the water over their gills. I thought the plec was dead as he didnt seem to be breathing at all, but when I netted him out, noticed his mouth moving a bit and quickly put him in the bucket too. Within minutes the plec was darting around and coming back to life, the Oscars however werent doing anything, no gill movement, no mouth movement nothing.
After 30 minutes or so, I put the plec back in the tank as he was getting agitated in the bucket. I then spent another hour holding the oscars upright in the water flow, cupping out the water and putting warmer back in. Slowly they started to recover until they were obviously getting stressed from my holding them and I put them back in the tank. For a while they lay there, although upright, not moving but gasping.
Over the last four hours, its a miracle, not only have the started swimming around again, but they have also taken some food, Im amazed, I really thought they were dead, to the point where I was ready with a bag to put them in and put in the bin.
All 3 fish are now doing well, you wouldnt know anything had happened, they are slightly quiet compared to normal and the oscars have serious diahorrea (I assume from the shock?) but Ive never seen a recovery like it from fish. Im hoping they have no serious long term damage from this.
Thank you Santa (or god)
Glad they are ok Minxy
