Need help with my Oscar fish

[WDBono]

Flashing is when a fish quickly scratches itself on its surroundings, they can’t scratch itches with their hands like we do, so they do that.
Usually related to disease, but may be a territorial display.
Many fish, especially cichlids, will quiver as a territorial/aggressive/breeding sign. Very common in Africans.

Thank you so much! I’ll definitely keep an eye out if it does that. Anything you can recommend to help alleviate the Oscar once it starts doing that?

 

[WDBono]

My oscars would twitch and shake when fighting I think it’s a display of dominance. When they were 3” I had them in with some 4-5” goldfish that were overwintering and they completely shredded one like pieces were everywhere and after they became noticeably more bold, I wouldn’t say aggressive but they were out more and seemed more confident

That’s so sad I’m sorry for your goldfish ! :’(
Would you say your Oscars still twitch and shake like that today or did they just mellow out eventually?

 

[Deadeye]

Thank you so much for for the advice! We have an API testing kit at home but I didn’t know about the nitrate. How would you go about increasing the nitrate levels? And would you recommend a full water change just in case the arowana did bring something into the tank?

You don’t want to increase nitrate, the numbers shown by esoxlucius are the highest you want it to get, ideally lower. Nitrate comes from the ammonia in fish pee being converted

Thank you so much! I’ll definitely keep an eye out if it does that. Anything you can recommend to help alleviate the Oscar once it starts doing that?

Depends on the disease, most commonly related to flashing is ich. The most common treatment is turning the heat to 86F and increasing the salinity to 3 ppm for 10 days.

 

[MultipleTankSyndrome]

I would like to add that the API test kit can react to chloramines (chlorine binded to NH3) as NH3, even if they're neutralized by water conditioner, if they're present in your water source. At least that is my experience - but it is consistent with the fact that the test kit also detects NH3 even after the API neutralizer for NH3 is adequately dosed.

This doesn't mean it won't react to a true positive NH3 reading, but if you have chloramines and use water conditioner, an API positive NH3 doesn't necessarily mean you have one.

esoxlucius , you may want to know about this.

 

[WDBono]

You don’t want to increase nitrate, the numbers shown by esoxlucius are the highest you want it to get, ideally lower. Nitrate comes from the ammonia in fish pee being converted

Depends on the disease, most commonly related to flashing is ich. The most common treatment is turning the heat to 86F and increasing the salinity to 3 ppm for 10 days.

Oh ok thanks so much! What would be the process for increasing salinity? Is there any special salts that I can buy for the water?

 

[Deadeye]

Oh ok thanks so much! What would be the process for increasing salinity? Is there any special salts that I can buy for the water?

Regular table salt does it. It is added in 3 tsp per gallon I believe, best to do it slowly to avoid shock.

 

[WDBono]

I would like to add that the API test kit can react to chloramines (chlorine binded to NH3) as NH3, even if they're neutralized by water conditioner, if they're present in your water source. At least that is my experience - but it is consistent with the fact that the test kit also detects NH3 even after the API neutralizer for NH3 is adequately dosed.

This doesn't mean it won't react to a true positive NH3 reading, but if you have chloramines and use water conditioner, an API positive NH3 doesn't necessarily mean you have one.

Oh ok good to know! I’ll have to double check if we use anything like that but thank you for the info!

 

[WDBono]

Regular table salt does it. It is added in 3 tsp per gallon I believe, best to do it slowly to avoid shock.

Oh ok! And I would just add that in over the course of ten days on top of adjusting the temperature? Thanks so much for the info! How often would I add the salt in during the day? Is once per day best or multiple times throughout?

 

[Deadeye]

So what you can do is one tsp per gallon per day, over 3 days. Then hold it for 10 days.

One proven way to treat ich/ick

I am writing this because it is something that comes up so often. Ich is a protozoal infection that afflicts fish and can rapidly kill them, most often by damaging gill tissue. The organism goes through a life cycle of; a small white spot feeding on your fish, which drops off to the floor of...

www.monsterfishkeepers.com

 

[WDBono]

So what you can do is one tsp per gallon per day, over 3 days. Then hold it for 10 days.

One proven way to treat ich/ick

I am writing this because it is something that comes up so often. Ich is a protozoal infection that afflicts fish and can rapidly kill them, most often by damaging gill tissue. The organism goes through a life cycle of; a small white spot feeding on your fish, which drops off to the floor of...

www.monsterfishkeepers.com

Thanks for this! We’ll keep an eye out!