Please help! I think our new Oscar is dying!

[JaimeLynn]

My roommate and I bought 3 oscar fish about 3 weeks ago and everything was fine. But them he decided to add another Albino Oscar fish to the tank. Almost immediately we noticed he was getting picked on by the other 3. He never even tried to defend himself, just tried to hide away all alone. Over the next day or so, he's been getting worse. He has pieces of his (skin or scales, i guess) hanging off. We know the other fish have been biting him, but we think the scrapes might be from being pushed into the rock statues. Now, he won't eat, he barely swims, and just sits on the bottom of the tank. It seems that it takes so much energy just to move his little fins. We put him in a separate tank, but nothing's changed. Please help! I can barely stand to look at him, it's so heartbreaking!!

[marg]

I know nothing about fish but, can't you remove him from the tank and put him in another one or something? I would feel bad too. You can't just let be killed.

[JaimeLynn]

yeah, we put him in a separate tank, but i think the damage has been done. i guess we'll wait and see what happens

[cstrohmeyer]

Give him a bath in aquarium salt and epsom salts, about one teaspoon epsom and one tablespoon aquarium salt per gallon water. 1-5 minutes is best. Other and additional remedies include stress coat (double dose) or similar product such as Novaqua. A Mebromin bath is also effective, if available. I would treat the aquarium with sulfamethizien (triple sulfa). Pimafix is a natural alternative to Sulfa.

Carl
Aquarium and Pond design and Maintenance since 1978
http://www.americanaquariumproducts.com

[CaliGirl0304]

I would go with the Pimafix, there is another one Melafix also that does bacterial, both all natural and you can mix the two if necessary. Good Luck.

[Bettachris]

with 4 oscars u are asking for trouble, as 4 would need around 400 gallons, leading to aggression. being large cichlids in a small tank (guessing under 30) they will fight.

oscars are very sick fish, and are very prone to illness, so you have to change the water stickly once aweek or more to keep water quality at its best and 2 canister filters are a must. this will prvent secondary illness.


for the damage oscars, their is nothing really fancy that is needed. a tank with very clean water, alittle salt, and melafix, their is little to no treat of paracite infections if the fish was healthy to begin with. bacterial infections will occur on open wounds.


you must either get a 75 + gallon for each oscar, or think about returning them to a petstore, as when fishes get older and bigger and are kept in small tanks, even more so with cichlids and oddballs they will fight, and often kill eachother.

in case u didn't know: cichlids are not peaceful fish(for the most part) serival of my cichlids are kept in seperate tanks as they will attack anything. my red devil(rarer white form) attacked 3 arowanas, 2 of them were jaradini arowanas, and anyone who has ever read about a jaradini arowana knows they are one of the most aggressive fishes out there. some cichlids like the five star general cichlid are regraded as one of the most aggressive cichlids out their. while yes there are many peaceful cichlids out there, but an oscar s not one of them.

--general oscar notes---
a large S.A cichlid that singley are ususally peaceful and often playful to the owners, a tank size is needed of around 75+ gallons. generally note picky on water conditions, but like said b4, they are very prone to illness, so keep the water clean.

[Goldfishlove]

ummm I had oscars before and I had 2 of them. I had them in one tank before and one of them became aggressive towards the other one. So I had to move the other one out of the tank. Oscars are aggressive fish toward each other

[Bettachris]

that is because their wasan't enough room,

most large cichlids will turn aggressive if crammed in a small tank. but i have had 2 adult oscars in a 100 gallon tank with no problems.