Oscar Help Please

[PinkMnM]

I had a family emergency that made me have to leave outta state for couple months and had my roommate “looking” out for my Oscar. He’s almost 3 years old and the story is got into a fight with the water heater and cut his head and never healed. Upon returning I put him into a hospital tank and started treatment with paraclense and aquatic salt. This doesn’t look like any HITH pics I’ve seen online but any advice or help is much appreciated. Since I’ve been home I’ve only gotten him to eat once and he will swim around the tank but from how he’s acting since he would always greet me when I came into the room it seems as if he’s blind. I’ll do whatever I need to if there’s a chance he can make it.

However if it’s too far gone I don’t want him to suffer at all. Side question if you know how long would you give to heal and see if he’ll make it. When I transferred him he was very weak, today when doing a water change he puffed up and attacked the siphon as he used to almost seeming like getting the fight back. I know euthanasia is on the table but the skin around the wound seems to be closing slowly? I just don’t wanna cut the cord too early.

 

[Colin_T]

Any idea how big the cut was and how deep it was?

How much salt are you adding?
You want 2 heaped tablespoons of salt for every 20 litres (5 gallons) of water). You would need the salt in there for a couple of weeks. Salt on its own won't treat this.

I don't know if that's part of its brain or just badly inflamed tissue. I'm going to say it's badly infected tissue because the brain should have been protected by the skull. It's pretty gross though.

Metronidazole probably won't do anything to that. Ideally you want a fish vet to take a swab and see what bacteria is causing the problem. Then get an antibiotic to treat it. However, that will probably cost a lot of money and it would be cheaper to replace the fish.

Normally with the correct medication you will see an improvement within 24-48 hours. With a bad case like this that has gone on for some time, it could take a long time to heal but there should be noticeable improvement within a few days of treatment.

You can try doing big (75-90%) daily water changes and using salt for a couple of weeks but antibiotics are probably going to be needed. If there's no improvement after a week of big water changes and salt, and you can't afford a vet, I would euthanise the fish.

If you have a Department of Agriculture nearby, they sometimes have a Fish Health section and they might do testing for you. In some states they charge for their services but in others they don't. You would have to call them and see if they can test the area and how much it would cost. A university biology lab might be able to do the same testing.