oscar not eating

[GP]

Find a way to get reverse osmosis water... This is the type of system put into your house to remove chlorine, ammonia, and other nasty stuff, good for drinking, excellent for fish... Try and relocate your fish. Possibly give her to the LFS for a while, in a nice tank with good parameters.. If the ammonia levels are high, it could be from a variety of things, over feeding.. We know your fish isn't eating, but are you consistant with taking the food out before it turns into harmful bacteria?

 

[ger87410]

Don't add amquel+. It stresses out your fish terribly. Use huge water changes to get it down. I suspected the ammonia.

 

[thomas]

Yes, were removing all the uneaten food. And I don't have anywhere to move the oscar (the lfs I usually use I can only get to on saturday, in 2 days) and even if I did, the stress can't be good.

Now things here are really confusing

After adding phdown (we added 2 teaspoons and it's a big tank), our readings are a ph of 7. We waited an hour to test ph, and stupidly didn't test before adding. We can't see how it could have possably gone down that much from the sample we had checked at the shop. Could one of the tests have read wrong? Is it possable for such a big tank (I can't say how much) go down like that from 2 teaspoons?

 

[ger87410]

Check the hardness and most importantly your alkalinity. Those are probably high and it's going to continuosly keep bumping up the ph if they are high. The alkalinity level is basically a measurement of how stable your ph is going to be. U want it right in the middle zone for midrange ph of 7.0.

 

[thomas]

Ok, this is all confusing. The tests show ammonia of 0 or just above 0. And ph of 7.

Again I stupidly didn't test the water with these actual tests before adding ph down and some bactirial stuff that helps lower ammonia, nitrite, nitrate and such.

I added it about an hour ago, is it possable that the short time has put the readings off? Because what I got from the fish stores tests was high ph (8), high ammonia, and very low nitrates.

I hate this, despite what I heared earlyer I feel like I know nothing about whats going on again.

EDIT: Also, the water hardness is probably pritty high, which is why I havn't added aquarium salt.

Will adding the salt make the water hardness go much up?

 

[ger87410]

No, no not at all. Some fish just can't handle it. Plecos, loaches and such. Forgot to ask you, what did you add?

 

[ger87410]

Oscras are not picky about their ph level. I had the ph level as high as it would read (accidently) and my oscar did great. Ate everything.

 

[thomas]

science products ph down and nutrafin cycle.

So adding salt shouldn't hurt the oscar (a freshwater fish) or add to the hardness and stuff?

 

[ger87410]

My oscar got hurt a while ago and I had to seperate him for a while. He got ick, so I treated that with quick cure. He then got body/fin fungus and I treated with salt. They say use 1 tablspoon for every 5 gallons but I halfed the dose cuz it seemed like too much salt. Ammonia causes their gills not to function very well. They drown. How is he doing? I though my oscar was going to die cuz he didn't do much in that tiny 10g I had to put him in. He just sat on the ground up until the last day I had him in there. I think he was just resting. If what you added was bacteria and not something that just make ammonia disappear then it MIGHT have caused your level to truely drop that much. If you're using the liqiud testers, make sure you get all of the rinse water off using tank water so there isn't a chance of a foreign substance (tap water) in your test. If it's the strips, they're not always 100% accurate. I control my ph by controlling my hardness by adding good bottled water in place of some of the tap water. My Tap water hardness is really high, and botled water has no hardness hardly, so I put 50/50 tap/bottled in my tanks. That keeps my ph at 7.
Footnote: it's actually pH not ph.
Forgot to mention, salt helps their gills function better.

 

[ger87410]

If you're going to add salt, do it slowly. Take about half the day to add salt. I did it at a rate of 1/3 of total dosage per hour, every other hour. Took 6 hours but I didn't want to do it too fast.

 

[thomas]

My oscar got hurt a while ago and I had to seperate him for a while. He got ick, so I treated that with quick cure. He then got body/fin fungus and I treated with salt. They say use 1 tablspoon for every 5 gallons but I halfed the dose cuz it seemed like too much salt. Ammonia causes their gills not to function very well. They drown. How is he doing? I though my oscar was going to die cuz he didn't do much in that tiny 10g I had to put him in. He just sat on the ground up until the last day I had him in there. I think he was just resting. If what you added was bacteria and not something that just make ammonia disappear then it MIGHT have caused your level to truely drop that much. If you're using the liqiud testers, make sure you get all of the rinse water off using tank water so there isn't a chance of a foreign substance (tap water) in your test. If it's the strips, they're not always 100% accurate. I control my ph by controlling my hardness by adding good bottled water in place of some of the tap water. My Tap water hardness is really high, and botled water has no hardness hardly, so I put 50/50 tap/bottled in my tanks. That keeps my ph at 7.
Footnote: it's actually pH not ph.
Forgot to mention, salt helps their gills function better.

Which level to truly drop that much, the pH (picky ) or the ammonia.

It is a liquid tester, and I did rinse it multilpe times in the test water.

Also, the oscar is the same as before, it's 10 PM here so she's going to sleep right now.

 

[ger87410]

Check what the ph/alkalinity/hardness outta the faucet is. If the alkalinity is high, the ph fluctuates upwards. If it's low if fluctuates downward. Either way IME keep the alkalinity in the middle area (don't remember where that is) and the ph will remain stable. Can't remember where I read, but the hardness of the water directly affects the ph. I'll look for where when I get a chance. Anyways Hard water tends to lead to high ph. Soft water tends to be acidic. I try to NEVER use chemicals. Control the hardness and you control the ph. IME

 

[GP]

I don't know what to tell you then, maybe she has something in her teeth?

 

[thomas]

Day 5.

She seems somewhat worse, paler then before, and not moving as much.
The only thing else I can try is the salt idea.

EDIT: Pictures
Picture 4
Picture 5
Movie 2 <-- Fixed

 

[GP]

Your water looks really bad.. Is that algea?