Hey everyone. I have been lurking around the forums here for a few weeks and decided to finally join up today because i want to continue and learn more about the hobby. I have kept reptiles (snakes mostly) for about a decade and i have always been fascinated by aquariums and fishkeeping in general. The bigger the better of course but i have never really had the room and was hesitant to spend the money as getting into the hobby can be a substantial expense. Well fast forward to a few weeks ago. A friend of mine asks if i want his aquarium. Wife says its loud, pain in the butt to clean and they want it gone. It is a 75gallon with two filters and pretty much everything so of course i took it and i gave his blood parrot to a friend of mine who had an established tank. I poured myself into research including tons from this site and i settled on a single oscar. I spent a month cycling my new tank. Waited patiently. bought a 2" tiger oscar. Waited for him to get settled in which he did. He started eating for two days, became quite comfortable greeting me at the lid for some food. Then after about 4 days of having him his health tapered off dramatically. I kept the lights off for him and he was lethargic and moping around which i have read can happen for short periods. Well he did not get better and i noticed a 2" (size of him) white, stringy bowel movement hanging from him. Initial research said internal parasites. I decided to give it another day. The next day he lost his stringy waste hanging from him but was still lying around. The next day he had an even longer stringy white thing hanging that was longer than him and he was miserable. Gills exhaling rapidly. lying around in corners sick. When he did move he was swimming upside down and all over. Long story short he passed on. I feel bad for not rushing out and treating him with whatever i could right away but it happened quite quickly. I have read alot of posts where people will give contradicting advice (go dump this in the tank or dump that). Anyway I am discouraged and this has been a horrible first experience with fish keeping but i am determined to learn more and in the future i hope i could treat something like this effectively. One question. If indeed it was an internal parasite of sorts. do you believe it likely came from my lfs? i know it is difficult to say for sure but i have no other fish and i have no idea where the disease could have come from. My biological filter seems very strong with no ammonia or nitrites and my nitrates were super low. PH was a little high around 8.2 but stable and i have read that oscars can adapt and that i should not attempt to alter ph. temps were around 78 and stable. Anyway. Thank you for reading my long rant and i look forward to learning and posting here in the future.
Introduction and rant...
- Thread starter craiga82
- Start date
Hi, I am new here also, and having allot of trouble getting anything to work etc. cant even access my profile, any suggestions as how to get it to work?
Could've been parasites for sure. There are several meds you'd be wise to keep on hand. Mela-fix, Pima-fix, prazipro, and Epsom salt. Read the bottles carefully and post any concerns in the freshwater diseases section of the forum. Parasites most likely came from the lfs. Happens all the time. Keep in mind that a 2" Oscar is a very young fish. Being very young and very stressed at the same time can lead to issues. Could you have saved the fish? Maybe. But in all reality, it was your first shot. We've all been there although some wont admit it. What to do now? Well if it were me, I would get myself a small school of livebearers. Say, 5-7 mollies. Let them live in the tank alone and feed them every day. This will get your bacteria colony multiplying. You're tank is going to look empty, but it's only temporary. It's common for a tank cycled with no fish to go through a secondary cycle with the addition of fish. In a 75 gallon tank, a few mollies would never notice a mini cycle, but you will have bacteria that is ready for more bio load. After the parameters have stabilized, you can go ahead and get yourself a small Oscar. Let it live with the mollies. It'll just be a small shock on your bio filter and should be fine. Oh and during the process, try not to get attached to the mollies, they'll be eaten by your new Oscar at some point. This whole process should take about 3 weeks.
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And keep in mind that a large Oscar has the bio load of a small dog lol. You're going to want to turn over your tank 10x an hour. Meaning you're going to need 750 gallons of water running through your filter media every hour.
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Just curious how you cycled the tank?
Were there fish in it, or did you do a fish less cycle by adding small amounts of ammonia, and testing the water until it tested 0.00?
Were there fish in it, or did you do a fish less cycle by adding small amounts of ammonia, and testing the water until it tested 0.00?
I did a fishless cycle with pure(diluted) ammonia. I started converting about 4ppm of ammonia in 24 hours and had large amounts of nitrites until eventually my nitrites went to zero. I continued to dose for another week to moniter how quickly everything converted to nitrates. Did a large water change and bought my fish.
Just keep posting at about 15 - 20 posts you'll be cleared to access your profile and such.
Don't give up. I started my 75 with dianos and neons, about 5 of each. Feed them fairly light. Baby Oscars are so cute and they quickly attach themselves to you. Mine went from under 2" to 6" in three months.
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Cliff's approach is spot on... even our more experienced members would have an issue with what appears to have been a very sick fish from the get go..... the truth of the matter is most fish are in poor health when they come home. The only other thing that wasn't mentioned was what did you feed the Oscar? I highly doubt this was the issue but you never know. When choosing an Oscar I would pick the biggest/sassyiest one of the bunch. going on markings/color alone is a poor indication of quality and an Oscars true colors don't shine until they are adults and their patterns can change a lot... so that beautiful baby may end up an ugly adult and vise versa. A healthy Oscar will also come right up to the tank and check you out or peek shyly from around décor ect... they never ignore your presence.