oscar not eating

[ger87410]

Grab a tape measure and measure the length, width, and height of the tank and compare it to here: http/www.repticzone.com/articles/tanksizes.html or here: http/www.thekrib.com/TankHardware/size-chart.html. Then you start out adding 1 heaping tablespoon per 10 gallons of water. They can take twice that dosage easily without adverse side effects. Plecos and loaches are a different story, but no the topic here. 1 tbsp per every 5 gallon doesn't even raise the sg to brackish level. It only raises the sg to like 1.002 at most and brackish is 1.005-1.009 I think. CFC will know fer sure, but that ain't the topic here neither. If that's more then a 10 gallon tank, I would guess at a 20 long or a 33 long, then U gotta add more salt before U see her improving. I've personally witnessed salt taking care of body fungus, ick and finrot all at the same time. Brought my oscar back from near death. I'll swear by aquarium salt and use it whenever able.

 

[thomas]

Mine wasn't listed there so I used the thing it says to use if not listed. It shows up as 209 Liters, Which is almost exactly 55g.

At 1 tablespoon per 5 gallons, thats about 11 tablespoons, 5-6 at 1 tablespoon per 10g as you said ger, I have over the last couple hours put in 1 and a half tablespoon.

At what rate would you say I should add the salt. To keep the stress low.

I am going to put in more now.

 

[ger87410]

When I added the salt my oscar was much healthier... They say in a tank that large to add 1 heaping tbsp per hour until you reach what you're supose to be at. So 5.5 heaping tablespoons administered over the course of 6 hours. I kept it at half the recommended dosage of 1 tbsp per 5g of water for the entire time that my oscar was ill. I've heard of people doing the full dosage, but I never have. I know that they can handle it though. Oscars are some of the hardiest fish. I had one jump out of his tank, get carried around in a toy poodle's mouth for a while, and still make it. I've never known an oscar to be picky at all about pH and gh. I have mine in a high pH, hard water tank right now and as far as I can tell he loves it.

 

[thomas]

There is currently 4 tablespoons in, she looks about the same, maybe swimming a little more.

 

[GP]

Wait a day, check the fish. Do a water change.

 

[thomas]

The tape water pH is over 8, the tank is about 7. Should I bring the replacment water down? I used pH down to get it down in the first place (Worked fine). Whats a better way I can get the pH down if using this stuff causes problems.

And should I add the equivilant ammount of salt of the water taken out of the tank to the ammount added in.

And finally, May I ask how the water change will benefit the fish. For future reference.

Thanks again for the help.

 

[Sorrell]

Oscars are very very messy, eating or not, and they need large weekly water changes. When one is sick the water changing frequency needs to be increased. I really think that if it was your pH, that the fish would have had an initial shock and would have adjusted by now. I used to breed Oscars and my pH is 8.2

 

[thomas]

I will do a water change tomorow. There is also now 5 tablespoons of salt in the tank.

What I read is that the sudden pH change from 6ish to 8 or possably 9ish could of burnt the fish's skin.

 

[thomas]

Use good bottled water, or ro water to get the ph down in place of tap water during water changes. Ro and bottled have a ph of 6.2 I think and your dilute the ph. I try to never use chemicals. I've been bouncing around with the ph for a week now and my oscar, though badly hurt, doen't seem to notice. Sometimes it's high, sometimes 7.0. I would suggest looking for another possible cause.

I looked at some bottled water, the pH was actually still high.

Where do I find ro water, what do you suggest?

If the pH really isn't the problem, what could it possably be? It happend directly after a large (too large, because of a stupid new siphon that sucked too much water out) water change, the alkalinity was/is low, and the pH was highly different.

The only symptoms I see are... Not eating, paleness, and such.

Also the fins look a little ragedy (is that a word?)

 

[GP]

parasite?

 

[thomas]

Parasites in the water used to change? It was tap water.

If thats the case what should I do.

 

[ger87410]

Pale, not eating, ragged fins... Sounds like poisoning to me. Seriously, if you got another tank, take whatever U can out of it, decorations, plants, filter media, etc, and put it in with the oscar. All of those things will already have beneficial bacteria on it and it will help you out tremendously. Sound to me like she got poisoned. Adding salt helps with the poisoning, but you waited for ages to put it in. Might have waited too long. Happened to me not too long ago. In fact the tank crashed. Might have happened to you?

 

[thomas]

We moved filter media from one of the other filters a while ago.

The ammonia was somewhat high when we initially did the water change. Could the sudden raise in pH change make the ammonia more poisones and that hurt her?

Theres no more ammonia now tho.
What kind of poisoning do you think?

By the way, she's back at the bottem of the tank not moving again, theres currently 5 tablespoons of salt in, should I add anymore? (Thats half, about 1 tablespoon per 10 gallons)

The reason I waited so long to put salt in was the several opinions I had over here against it (granted they probably don't know as much as you guys do). I finally decided after reading more stuff about it and more opinions here to do it.

 

[thomas]

Ok, I added more clean water to her tank today, she wouldn't eat any beef heart.

 

[ger87410]

Keep in mind that during a water change you are taking out some of the salt. So for every 10 gallons you take out, U also take out a tablespoon of salt. That means for every 3.33 gallons U use to replace the water during a water change, U need to add 1 tsp of salt. Sounds to me anyways like she got ammonia/nitrite poisoning. Sometimes they recover. I lost 6 fish to poisoning because of a tank crash. pH has little to no bearing on toxicity levels. That's why they say don't worry about the pH during cycling. Also, I've known oscar to tolerate all pH levels from acidic to alkaline without any problems. For well over a year my parents kept an oscar in a 20h w/ alkaline water around 8.0 or higher before giving it away to a friend of my mom's. Just keep doing 25% or greater water changes everyday and replacing the salt that you take out during the change and hopefully she will pull through. What are all your parameters now?