Oscar is being really strange starting to worry

[meluvmeosky]

My Oscar, which I've had for almost 3 years, has all of a sudden lost his
will to eat. He only eats very little and his belly looks a little sunken in. I feed him pellets, the hikari red bag and green bag, is he just bored of his normal food?

 

[bigspizz]

What size tank? What are your test results? Tank mates? How often do you feed? How much do you feed? And anything else that can help us "speculate" for you....

 

[nomadofthehills]

Water change schedule? Temperature? Any changes in the house or tank, minor or large?

 

[meluvmeosky]

I feed about once every other day, water test is good, phosphates are kinda high. I do 50% WC once a week. He is with a sev in a 75 the sev still eats. I did add like 50 more pounds of gravel and there is a very small JD in there healing cause he got his butt kicked by my GT but hes only gonna be there for a little, oscar barely notices him.

 

[bigspizz]

Do you have a camera?

 

[kimandderek]

maybe you could start feeding him live foods.. maybe even blood worms.. i know when my fish get bored of their food i just switch it up to blood worms

 

[cenecker]

water test is good

I don't mean to be rude but thats often a matter of opinion What are the actual parameters? Most importantly the pollutants (ammonia, nitrite, anhd nitrate).

Oscars often react adversely to any change in environment and sulk for a while so adding 50 lbs of gravel (although thats an awful lot of gravel and typically the more gravel the organic waste builds up in it...gravel sucks I don't even use any personally..) might be whats bugging him.

 

[importracer]

Probably the gravel had some contaniments in it that was not cleaned all the way????????Take out half the gravel and clean it again, better this time....Better yet, just take out half the gravel and use it in another tank....Too much gravel will harbor LOTS of goodies and baddies.....Keep up with the weekly water change......Thumbs up on that........After three years, Oscar is probably bored with the food.....Vary it(if you have not already) with fresh meat such as chopped prawns, krill, mealworms, and crickets....O's are known to go through "PMS" stages in which they click off all of a sudden and sulk.....For the most part, all my past O's(20 or so) have gone through a week or two of no eating for some reason.....