Rescued Oscar

Hi, yesterday I rescued a tiger oscar from a coworker who's son had just lost interest. This is my first oscar. I am attaching photos of him so any help would be appreciated. Best guess he is 6-8 years old, about 10" long. He was kept in a 30 gallon his whole life with poor, if any, filtration. The water was so black when we picked him up you could not see 1" into the water. Fed only a few times a week. I believe he is missing some scales and has a sunken belly. I think he is eating well, I'm not sure how much to feed him every day.

Once I got him home I put him into my 75 gallon tank and moved those fish into the 30G I got with the oscar. He seems very happy in his new set up. Very active. The pet store recommended a dip in a Methylene Blue bath. I am feeding him Hikari Cichlid Gold and "fly mix" pellets I feed to my pond koi.

Thank you.

Bless your kind heart for rescuing this precious fish.

You should enter that cool Oscar in December FOTM contest which features any fish, but especially oddballs!

He needs to fatten up. Get some ox heart, freeze it, then grate some off with a cheese grater and feed him that. Daily, at the same time of the day.

Raw/ cooked fish and prawn are also good foods for Oscars. Remove the shell from the prawn and just feed the soft tail bit. Cut it into bite size pieces so there is less chance of the fish regurgitating it.

Do big regular water changes (75% each week) and gravel clean the substrate to help keep the water clean and prevent Hexamita infections. these cause hole in the head disease or head and lateral line disease (pretty much the same thing).

Clean the filter at least once a month to keep things clean.

Can I enter my father-in- law? He’s an oddball fish.

When he gets some weight on and is all healthy, throw some feeder fish or crawdads in the tank. My oscars would eat the fish or crawdads and spew out the scales or crawdads crusty skin. Feeding my oscars live food was one of the sad parts of raising oscars. They live a really long time.

It's been a few weeks and he looks happy and healthy. My only issue is I have not seen him poop. He eats every day and I read they are heavy poppers. So why haven't I seen any poop?
I have sandy coloured gravel so maybe his poop blends in??? At least it's not white and stringy.

Vvixen said:

It's been a few weeks and he looks happy and healthy. My only issue is I have not seen him poop. He eats every day and I read they are heavy poppers. So why haven't I seen any poop?
I have sandy coloured gravel so maybe his poop blends in??? At least it's not white and stringy.

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Maybe he is shy and doesn't want to poop in front of people. That is OK

itiwhetu said:

Maybe he is shy and doesn't want to poop in front of people. That is OK

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Quick, quick, they have gone. Get me some plant leaves and look the other way.