What is wrong with my Oscar?

[Fisheroni]

s/he has been acting strange lately, something is obviously wrong but I can’t figure it out. We’ve tried dosing the tank with Melafix, salt, general cure, but nothing seems to work. S/he is about 1 1/2 years old and is getting progressively worse. All other fish in the tank are in good health. Tested the water and ammonia etc are normal. Any ideas?

140 g tank
3 oscars
5 sevrums
1 dempsey
1 balloon green terror
1 peacock
2 common plecos
A ton of mystery snails

thanks

 

[Colin_T]

slap slap slap slap slap.
I'm a fish tail slapping you across the head for adding chemicals to the tank when you don't know what is wrong with the fish.
slap slap slap

It looks like the fish is getting bashed. In both pictures you have other Oscars that are eyeing this one off and there is also a Jack Dempsey, which might be knocking it around.

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If you could post a video of all the fish in the tank and we might be able to see who is bullying the Oscar, or it might provide us with other ideas.

Is the fish eating?
What does its poop look like?
How long has it been like this?
Did you add anything to the tank in the 2 weeks before this started?

How often do you do water changes and how much water do you change?
Do you gravel clean the substrate when you do water changes?

How often and how do you clean the filter?

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I would move it into a separate tank and monitor it.

I would also do the following on the main tank and the other tank if you move the fish out of its current tank.

Wipe the inside of the glass down with a clean fish sponge.

Do a 75% water change and gravel clean the substrate every day for a week. The water changes and gravel cleaning will reduce the number of disease organisms in the water and provide a cleaner environment for the fish to recover in.
Make sure any new water is free of chlorine/ chloramine before it is added to the tank.

Clean the filter if it hasn't been done in the last 2 weeks. However, if the filter is less than 6 weeks old, do not clean it. Wash the filter materials/ media in a bucket of tank water and re-use them. Tip the bucket of dirty water on the garden/ lawn. Cleaning the filter means less gunk and cleaner water with fewer pathogens.

Increase surface turbulence/ aeration to maximise the oxygen levels in the water.

 

[GuppyBreeder180604]

Well to me it could be for 1 of 2 reasons.
1. Another fish is attacking her/him.
2. The tank decor is hurting her/him.

By the way, don't add medicine to the tank if you don't know if it is an injury or an illness or which illness because the remedy could be worse than the ailment, especially if there is no ailment!

 

[Fisheroni]

slap slap slap slap slap.
I'm a fish tail slapping you across the head for adding chemicals to the tank when you don't know what is wrong with the fish.
slap slap slap

It looks like the fish is getting bashed. In both pictures you have other Oscars that are eyeing this one off and there is also a Jack Dempsey, which might be knocking it around.

-------------------
If you could post a video of all the fish in the tank and we might be able to see who is bullying the Oscar, or it might provide us with other ideas.

Is the fish eating?
What does its poop look like?
How long has it been like this?
Did you add anything to the tank in the 2 weeks before this started?

How often do you do water changes and how much water do you change?
Do you gravel clean the substrate when you do water changes?

How often and how do you clean the filter?

-------------------
I would move it into a separate tank and monitor it.

I would also do the following on the main tank and the other tank if you move the fish out of its current tank.

Wipe the inside of the glass down with a clean fish sponge.

Do a 75% water change and gravel clean the substrate every day for a week. The water changes and gravel cleaning will reduce the number of disease organisms in the water and provide a cleaner environment for the fish to recover in.
Make sure any new water is free of chlorine/ chloramine before it is added to the tank.

Clean the filter if it hasn't been done in the last 2 weeks. However, if the filter is less than 6 weeks old, do not clean it. Wash the filter materials/ media in a bucket of tank water and re-use them. Tip the bucket of dirty water on the garden/ lawn. Cleaning the filter means less gunk and cleaner water with fewer pathogens.

Increase surface turbulence/ aeration to maximise the oxygen levels in the water.

It looks like there is a fungal infection on the oscars tail that I didn’t notice yesterday. I will be moving it to the sick tank ASAP.

This video shows about 1/3 of the tank, so they have a lot more space to swim. the fish in this tank are just curious and like to gather in front of the camera lol.

link to video:

I haven’t seen it eat in the last 2 days and didn’t notice any poop. It’s been in the same spot for about a week now.

We added about 10 home bred apple snails from our other 40g tank (currently healthy no issues in that one) to this tank in the 2 weeks prior to this happening.

We usually do 20%water changes every week and gravel vac every 2 weeks. We did a 50%water change about 1 1/2 weeks ago when the Oscar started looking like this. Our tap water is slightly acidic and soft about 7.2 ph.

I think this may have been kicked off from the Oscar getting beat up like you said. All the other fish are pretty chill with the Oscar unless he goes into their territory which it hasn’t lately. The green terror is a trouble maker and is aggressive, so I have a feeling that one could have beat the Oscar up.

will clean both tanks again today.

 

[mark4785]

Judging from the size of the other fish and the fact that the Oscar is not moving towards them, I would say that some bullying as previously caused it to become stressed and injured on the back fin.

Make sure the Oscar is in a high flow aquarium, has a pH of around 7.2 and a temperature no higher than 25 degrees C. I would not put him back in the crowded aquarium; he needs space to swim without being pushed around by other fish.

 

[Colin_T]

We usually do 20%water changes every week and gravel vac every 2 weeks. We did a 50%water change about 1 1/2 weeks ago when the Oscar started looking like this. Our tap water is slightly acidic and soft about 7.2 ph.

With big fish like the cichlids and pleco you have, you want to do bigger water changes and gravel clean the substrate every time you do a water change. These big fish produce a lot of waste and a 20% water change each week is not going to remove much gunk.

I would be doing a 75% water change every week and gravel cleaning the substrate every week.
Make sure any new water is free of chlorine/ chloramine before it's added to the tank.

Clean the filter if it hasn't been done in the last 2 weeks. However, if the filter is less than 6 weeks old, do not clean it. Wash the filter materials/ media in a bucket of tank water and re-use them. Tip the bucket of dirty water on the garden/ lawn.
Filters should be cleaned at least once a month otherwise the fish are more likely to develop health issues.

Add some salt to the tank with the sick fish and hope it survives.

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SALT
You can add rock salt (often sold as aquarium salt), sea salt or swimming pool salt to the aquarium at the dose rate of 1 heaped tablespoon per 20 litres of water. If there is no improvement after 48 hours you can double that dose rate so there is 2 heaped tablespoons of salt per 20 litres.

Keep the salt level like this for at least 2 weeks but no longer than 4 weeks otherwise kidney damage can occur. Kidney damage is more likely to occur in fish from soft water (tetras, Corydoras, angelfish, Bettas & gouramis, loaches) that are exposed to high levels of salt for an extended period of time, and is not an issue with livebearers, rainbowfish or other salt tolerant species.

The salt will not affect the beneficial filter bacteria, fish, plants, shrimp or snails.

After you use salt and the fish have recovered, you do a 10% water change each day for a week using only fresh water that has been dechlorinated. Then do a 20% water change each day for a week. Then you can do bigger water changes after that. This dilutes the salt out of the tank slowly so it doesn't harm the fish.

If you do water changes while using salt, you need to treat the new water with salt before adding it to the tank. This will keep the salt level stable in the tank and minimise stress on the fish.