oscar not eating

[thomas]

I think thats just the camera, it doesn't look near that green in real life, and the bubbles and such are due to the air pump.

EDIT: Just realised I didn't upload the movie file correctly, it should work fine now. It makes it much easyer to see what things look like. (However it appears too dark at first)
Movie 2

 

[3fsh]

What size tank is she in?

 

[thomas]

I wish I knew the answer to that, but this is an old tank and I don't exactly know, I will put up some more stuff to give you a better idea.

Pictures of the tank are up.

Front
Right
Left

 

[3fsh]

Hmmmm... try measuring the tank to calculate how big it is. (length, width, heighth) Oscars are very messy fish so the tank might be too small, or the filter might not be providing adequate filtration for the water. You could try feeding her a crayfish... feeder fish aren't very nutritional. Here's some pretty good info on oscars: http/www.cichliddepot.com/american/oscar.html

 

[thomas]

Ok, It seems the ammonia really has gone down that much (just faster then I expected).
And the pH is still high I was just misreading the crappy tester.

I have a question now about pH down.
Sometimes some little moisture clumps tiny bits together which I am sure you know.

Some of them fell to the bottem in a tiny clump when I was slowly adding phdown (the biggest one was about the size of a tiny peice of gravel, the rest were about a grain of sand.

Are these dangorous or will they desolve too quickly.

 

[thomas]

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.

If this had happend gradually my oscar would probably be like your oscar. But my guess is it went up way too much in the water change from what must of been dangorous water (we are already taking more precautions with the buckets by keeping them in a safer location).

We are slowly going to try and move the tanks ph down in the next 3 days, and hope she can recover, the odds arn't great, but I suppose it's better then nothing.

EDIT: Also, what do you think I should do if water hardness interfears with getting the pH down.
And I have heard bad stuff about pH down. What are my other options (other then moving her to another tank somewhere).

Water changes maybe? How risky is pH down at this point?

 

[thomas]

Day 6, no eating so far. Ph however has seemed lower over the last 12 hours.

 

[thomas]

Today makes one week without eating.

She's still swimming around slowly and maintaining balance.
pH remains at abouit 7.2 a higher then her original pH but not in the alkaline area anymore.

How long can an oscar go without eating?

 

[ger87410]

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.

 

[ger87410]

I forgot to mention, what is your nitrite/ammonia?

 

[thomas]

Both are currently about 0.

The pH is shown on 3 seperate brands of tests as 7.2-4 somewhere in that area. Thats about middle right? His original pH about a week ago before this happend would of most likely been in the 6ish area. Do you think I should just leave it in the middle are right now to prevent more stress from pH change. Or try and get it a little lower to his original, slightly acidic pH.

 

[GP]

She looks somewhat pale to me...

 

[Lorelei]

I honestly don't think it has anything to do with your ph. Oscars in my experience have never been that picky about ph.
I would still suggest water changes before I started putting salt in the water. Before I started putting ANYthing in that water. LOTS and lots of water changes with Stress Coat. Like every day. It's a 100 gallon tank, you shouldn't fear doing 10% per day.

Have you tried wiggling a pice of fresh beef heart in her direction? Did you try live foods yet? A goldfish? A guppy? Something like that to peak her interest.

 

[ger87410]

I assume, of course, that you are doing daily water changes until this boils over. I try to never add chemicals that do anything to the water or the fish unless the fish has a recognizable visible syptom. I noticed the tank that it was in didn't have any plant or hiding places in it. My oscar wouldn't eat in the hospitol tank until I gave him a hiding spot and some plants. He would not eat in a bare aquarium.

 

[thomas]

I honestly don't think it has anything to do with your ph. Oscars in my experience have never been that picky about ph.
I would still suggest water changes before I started putting salt in the water. Before I started putting ANYthing in that water.  LOTS and lots of water changes with Stress Coat. Like every day. It's a 100 gallon tank, you shouldn't fear doing 10% per day.

Have you tried wiggling a pice of fresh beef heart in her direction? Did you try live foods yet? A goldfish? A guppy? Something like that to peak her interest.

But the water would have gone from 6ish to 8ish in about a couple hours or less. Oscars can tollorate that?

Also, this is the tank she has always been in, I sadly have nowhere else to put her.

ger87410: We haven't been doing water changes, because the pH of our tapwater is so high, and we have no safe way to get it down aside from pH down. And we don't want the pH up again.
Remember this happend the day we did the last water change.

Today is day 8, She seems more generally paler before I think. pH is 7.2ish, no nitrites and such.

She isn't moving as much as before, and she now has a whitish oval shaped thing on her fin, my friend things it may be fungus or something, that or an damaged scale.

You have to look carefully to see it, it's on the bottem rightish of her caudal fin

EDIT: Oh, and yes I put some live food in, so far she hasn't really touched it.

Also, her eyes (both of them) look slightly cloudy, not like cloudy eye which I have seen on very sick fish, but more slight cloudness ontop of the eye. I have been told this can be caused by alkaline burn.
It's not very noticable, been there for several days, and you have to look close to even know it's there.

EDIT: I also forgot to tell you, our new siphon sucked up too much water on the last change. Not too much, but a little more then it should of.