Crazy Oscars

[Soaup]

I have been losing a long battle with hole in the head with my oscars. They seem to have been getting progressively worse. Anyways My question is one of my oscars is going crazy at night when i turn the lights off, He is thrashing wildly and jumping and splashing water. He has cut himself up Big Time with deep wounds and now peeling skin, He isnt looking very good at all. Last week my mom unplugged the heater to iron some shirts when i was away and i came back to find she didnt plug it back in, The tank was 58 degrees for 2 days. I dont know if that has anything to do with it but the timing is too coincidental. Anyways im considering putting him down, i dont know how i will do so if anyone has advice on that i will take it into consideration.

 

[aardvarkfromspace]

I wouldn't put a fish down ever so I'm not the one to ask... The temp going down like that after a wound isn't a good thing... infection could easily set in.. HITH is easy to keep at bay if you just do frequent water changes...

My fish freak out often when I turn on and off the lights.. never really hurt themselves before... what does your oscar hurt himself on?? maybe a pointy rock or something that you could take out?

 

[moneywastedonfish]

My oscar used to jump and cut its head up all the time. Short term solution was to wrap the cross bars of the tank in cling wrap - about 30 layers, im not actually sure on the number of layers but enough to give any sharp bits on the top a nice thick padded layer.
Long term solution was to get a bigger and higher tank so i could have the water level a fair bit lower than the lids, this meant the oscar lost most of its energy before it hit the top and so didnt cut itself.

Your oscar will probably recover if you just give it time there pretty hard to kill, do heaps of water changes and maybe consider changing the diet as this may help the hith.

 

[Soaup]

Yeah, I believe he is just jumping and ripping his head open on the hood. Its gotten pretty nasty. The tank is 125 gallons. How much bigger can i get i believe that is not the problem. The tank is bare has only gravel. Im thinking about getting rid of the oscars and a few other fish if anyone is intrested im in New York City.

 

[plecoguy]

get somthing in that tank for the oscars to play with, wiffle balls, ping pong balls, fake plants, anything they can manipulate and move around...they are probably bored to death.

 

[moneywastedonfish]

you're right that tank is plenty big enough, you could try just leaving the tank lights off for a few days and see if that settles your oscar down. I would leave the tank totally untouched for about 4-5 days, no food, water changes, lights.
Just my opinion, use it or dont .

 

[Kopix Nation]

I am losing the hole-in-the-head battle with my two oscars too.... I am sad that they are not healing up even though I am trying everything to try and help with the healing....

claire

 

[Soaup]

Update.. So far we have some good news folled by bad then good then more bad.. Ok so the first part is he started to heal and was almost better and a few days later again he hit his head and cut it up again.. Then it started to heal and was just about healed.. Now You know how oscars have a bulgy eye like poped out in a way.. well on top of his eye there is a cut on his left eye lid.. Then on the right eye it is not poped out it looks like it was pushed in possibly from him crashing into something.. Anybody know whats wrong with him.. Has the HITH gotten so bad that he is no crazy?

 

[aardvarkfromspace]

There might be a reason it's jumping..... maybe the water is dirty? could be bored..

I put pvc pipe in my big fishies tank.. he bites it and chases it around the tank... pvp pipe floats and is strong enough so they're not going to eat it or do any damage with it.. I'd be worried about a ping pong ball, fish might swallow it.. but I donno... try entertaining the poor guy lol

 

[Soaup]

Put a wiffle ball in the tank.. The fish hasnt hurt himself since but i havent seen them playing with it much if at all.. Any other ideas?

 

[Soaup]

Was pretty bored decided to break my thermometer.. It doesnt look like anything leaked into the tank but he broke the bottome of the thermometer.. The wiffle ball is just hanging on top.. My catfish plays with it a bit and so does the oscar that hasnt been hurting himself.

 

[pica_nuttalli]

*shrug* synirr's oscar enjoys playing with a large fishing float. you know, the red&white round ones that look like spherical buoys.

 

[Soaup]

I will give that a shot.. Like a beach toy boat maybe??

 

[Synirr]

Have you considered that maybe your oscars are fighting? If the one is getting so badly hurt that'd be my first guess. My fish usually only jump when they're having what I like to call a "quarrel", since neither ever gets seriously hurt.

My oscar has a few different toys that I rotate to keep him from getting bored with them. Right now it's a ping-pong ball, but he also has a fishing float thing like pica mentioned and a rubber ducky. His tank has a couple of badly abused Amazon sword plants he and his midas hybrid tankmate love to tear up, and sand substrate to dig in. I also interact with him every day, basically just moving my hands around in front of him and having him follow me; he loves the attention. He rarely hurts himself, and when he does it's usually just a solitary bruise or small scrape on the head. I firmly believe they need some sort of stimulus to keep themselves out of trouble

As for HITH, my oscar has had it before and is now completely HITH free and his wounds have all healed beautifully (so much for the myth that they never go away). I treated the tank twice with Melafix, which I don't really think did anything, upped my water changes for a couple of weeks, and removed all the carbon from the filter as I've heard small carbon particles can sometimes get caught in the sensory organs and cause the HITH infection. I got the biowheel attachment for my filter as well and that really did the trick.