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I had to add that if you are doing these large water changes you are also placing this fish at risk of gas bubble disease as I explained earlier. There is no time for that water to outgas with the large scale changes and rapid heating time. I'm still wondering if this wasn't what was wrong with him to begin with, having bubbles in the eye area.



Last edited by Cory_Di at 05-Dec-2004 15:14

more bad news another but mush smaller air bubble has appaered on th other eye, and over night i noticed his HITH has come back i dont think i can win, he never moves anymore, i dont know why, he looks kinda fat i noticed, i think its getting worse i dont think he can win another battle

well, i got a realy good look at it, and it is almost completely healed there is barley a mark, by first glanse, by someone who dident know he was sick, wouldent see anything wrong! im so happy he is healthy again!!!!! he hasnt layed on his side for about a week, always sitting on or near the heater, he likes to rest his chin on it, i know he will be fine, he has healed, well almost perfect, and the scratches have also healed

he ate 2 pellets yesterday, i think the fry are scaring him from coming to the surface all the way, i dont think he wants to eat them he wouldent eat them till after they swam away from the pelllet after PUSHING IT TORDS HIM!! i think he loves them

well he still hasnt eaten but the eye is almost fully healed, there are about 100 fry in there with him, he hasnt eaten any that i can see, but the craw is enjoying him self, its not often he gets to actively hunt, but very few are at the bottom, will a rainbow shark eat the fry? do i need to remove them?i saw a rainbow at walmart eating off a plant, they dont look like they would have a preditors mouth

Fishyhelper, I am glad your oscar is getting better.

I must say though that the links that were provided to you are valuables ones, and that Di gave them to you because she was concerned about the way it appeared you were maintaining your tank. ie the filter being turned off and the large water change you mentioned.

Please dont view the help you are getting as you being treated like you are stupid or a newbie, but just that you are getting thorough help from a fellow fishkeeper. Have a read of the pages you were linked to, you may learn some things you didnt know.

---

Before you criticize someone walk a mile in their shoes. That way you're a mile away and you have their shoes.

he is looking much better, there is no more infection, he still hasnt eaten, but i think its because i scared him when i came down stairs, but i got a good look at it, when he swam away, yup, i think its now safe for me to bring home that shark

even though they can go that long, i would rather him not, but the infection is under control, and now he is amusing himself doing head stands, looking for his craw friend i put more fry in there, they are actualy growing faster in there, and oski doesnt seem to mine a few buddys, i realy want to get him a frend when he gets his new tank, he almost hats to eat feeders, he swims with them, makes friends with them, then 1 day a few are missing but i think he would be happier with a friend that cant tempt him to eat it i may get him an oscar friend if he gets a 90, so i will have 2 oscars and a rainbow shark so far if he gets a 90

Without a pic it is very hard to deterimine what exactly the bubble was, or what it was caused by. But either way, once it was popped, you fish had an open skin area, that was highly e to infection. At that time, as well as now, you should be treating with antibiotics to prevent any more damage. As I don't know where you live, or what your access to a fish store is, I cannot help you with which type to get. IF you can get to a fish store, try to get some pennicillin, and use as it is directed. But, you will need to remove your carbon from the power filter, as the carbon will take out the antibiotics. If your power filter's filter has carbon built into it, then you will need to remove the entire filter while you treat the fish with the antibiotics. But, you should leave the power filter running, to ensure that the water is moving so that the fish will get enough oxygen, and not suffocate.

As for the fish not eating, I beleive this is more from stress. When fish get stressed, wether it be from the infection, or from the moving him in and out of the tank, it sometimes can take several days for them to calm down enough to eat. Dont worry, that oscars can go a couple of weeks without eating.

HTH...

_____________________________________________________________

There is always a bigger fish...

Hey Fishyhelper... glad to hear your Oscar is looking a little better. I think your nitrAtes are still a little high, and you need to work on them either by doing more regular water changes, deeper gravel vac (and hence a slightly larger water change) or better filtration. Also, your pH is a little high, but this wont be a major problem for your fish until it's a fair bit higher (like above 9-9.5). Oscars are fairly forgiving. You might be best to monitor your nitrates once the course of meds is finished, as the reduced filtration will be impacting on them currently. Regardless, you need to keep an eye on them and increase the regularity of 10% water changes to keep them <20ppm.

As for his 'moods', have you got something in there for him to play with? I know my Oscars get moody when they are bored, and quite often sulk. A couple of plants does the trick... something for them to destroy!

ok listen, im not a newbe to fish keeping so please stop treating me like 1, ur making me feel stupid, it doesnt have a bio wheel, it is a HOB, and like i said earlier, i have only done the big water change once, i picked up the mads, and i splurged and got some test srpis, i recorded them in a book, here they are...
ph: 8.4
alkalinity: 300
hardness: 300
nitrIte: 0
nitrAte: about 25

he jus tlooks bummed now, he started looking better before i put the meds in, but i put them in to aid in healing, and i left 1 filter pad in, because i cant take carbon out,(the filter is a power filter) the other 1 is in some tank water, the kind i set aside to rinse it in, i dont buy them then they get dirty, i rinse them and they are good as new, but hes looking better.

PS. pleae dont take what i said before as rude, i just cant stand being preached about things i have already pounded in

it is on the skin, not on the eye it self, i noticed he eye starting to ah, pop out, but not like pop eye, so i kept a close eye on it, and soon after i tiny new one formed on top of that one, but the nextday he had popped the little one, and not soon after he popped the other larger one, and now he has a wound on his eye, i thought about melafix, but, i remember about melafix irrritating the skin to promote new slime coat, and i thought that i wasnt dealing with a melafix situation, should i use salt? can crayfish tollerate it? i have a single craw that eats the food he drops, he keeps everything clean on the sand bottom, so i know he is healthy, should i take him out? and put him in a say, 1 gallon?

Last edited by fishyhelper288 at 20-Dec-2004 20:14

Please STOP doing those large scale water changes!!! You are highly stressing that fish. It counters many principles of fish keeping, especially if you have to keep netting him. If you want to do water changes in excess of 30%, then please do them every other day so the fish doesn't have such a large readjustment and limit it to 50% even then. These are going to kill the fish and I believe it is dropping his resistance and ability to fight what is ailing him.

Please read this: http://www.fishprofiles.com/articles/general/quality.asp

and this... scroll down to water change frequency:

http://www.webrbiz.com/angelfish/waterchange.html

and this:

http://www.drhelm.com/aquarium/maintenance.html

I also recommend getting these books or checking your library for them. Older aquarium books may not reflect our latest understanding of the environment.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1582451664/102-0658433-2125727?v=glance

Now, does your filter hang on the back?

If the answer is "yes", then does it look like this, with a wheel: http://www.marineland.com/products/consumer/con_penguinfilters.asp

Or, does it look like this with no wheel:

http://www.shopping.com/xGS-whisper_filter~NS-1~linkin_id-3062118

If it is not like either of these, then I would ask you if it runs with an airpump that blows bubbles under a plate and through some tubes in the corner of the tank?



Last edited by Cory_Di at 05-Dec-2004 15:12

i dont knowwhat kind it is, i think it came with the tank when it was bought, u know, the 30s from walmart, i syphoned out most of the water, then refilled it, but he ate late last night, and wanted to eat around 12, but when i opened the top and put the food in, he sunk back to the bottom, but i will try and get the fungus stuff, i dont know why i dident think of that but yea, im going there today so i will pick some up, thanx, oh, and there is somthing black in the wound too any ideas on what that is?

Do you have a Walmart or similar type of store? If so, you should be able to find something called Fungus Clear Tank Buddies. Get that and follow directions - it is like an antibiotic. I think it is 1 tablet per 10 gallons so you may need to buy more than one package to complete treatment. This fish needs medicine.

You never answered me about your filter. What kind of filter do you have? When you turned it back on did you just turn it back on without dumping the stagnant water?

Last edited by Cory_Di at 04-Dec-2004 23:19

i turned it back on this morning wheni saw he was swimming around more, but now he looks realy bad, hei eye is realy bad infected, he looks misserable, so i threw in afew endler fry, i dont think he will eat them, but i am willing to try most anything to get him to eat, i hope he pulls through

Oh my goodness - you shut the filter off?

What kind of filter do you have? Is it the kind that hangs on the back or a cannister? If it is the kind that hangs on the back, you just take it out, or if it is a bio-bag type of thing, do the best you can to cut out the carbon during medication. By leaving the bag material in there, you still have good bacteria on it. If you have a bio-wheel, just throw out the activated carbon.

Here's the danger of powering off the filter....

There's limited oxygen in any filter once the power is off. The good bacteria (aerobic) uses that oxygen up quite quickly (in as little as an hour for most filters). Then, bad bacteria (anaerobic) starts to grow in the filter reservoir where the stagnant water is. When the filter is turned back on and that stagnant water goes into the tank, the fish are likely to be fine for a time, but then in the coming days and weeks, they begin to fall ill. This is because they become infected.

Marineland advises that filters be cleaned out with power outages of one hour or more before powering back on.

Between 100%, infrequent water changes, and power the filter on and off, this fish has plenty of reason to be sick.

I'm not quite sure what else to suggest at this point because the conditions, while good intentioned, are not the best situation for the fish.

Can you shop online for fish stuff? If so, Drs. Foster & Smith, a catalog company with over 40 years of business, is online, as is Petsmart - the seller of the Jungle Anti-Bacterial Food.

well, i have sand, and i do gravel-vac when i see stuff on the bottom i vac it, my oscar must be cleaner than most ocars, when he chews, he barely has any "dust" come from his gills anymore, he eats 1 or 2 pellits at a time, and if there are any larger pieces that falls, the craw runns to it, then takes it back to his log, its kinda cute, i dont know if he is getting better or worse, he still isnt eating, and i put the last bit of melafix i have in his tank, and i turned off the filter, so the carbon doesnt "suck" it all up, but his color is better, so im hopefull he was my first oscar, and an excuse to get more, and bigger tanks, and with out him, i wouldent have known the world of guppies and plattys, i dont want anything t ohappen to him, and i almost got a 90 for him, but is was already sold so im looking hard.
i dont have a fish stor around here.
i have only done 1 100% change, and that was because the tank has regular algea attacks, and its the gross hair algea, and i have tried everything to try and get rid of it, wiping it off, scraping it off, ect i dont want to use chemicals, and ok, i dont strip the tank down to nothing, i leave about 3-4 inches of water,
and i know all about the cycle, and what types of salt

Last edited by fishyhelper288 at 03-Dec-2004 20:12

Continuing....

Why would we do these water changes this way? Well, it comes down to water chemistry.

When the fish get added to a tank, ammonia is created from their waste and rotting food. The ammonia is then eaten by a good bacteria that grows in the tank. But this bacteria creates another toxin called nitrite. A second good bacteria grows that eats the nitrite. But this bacteria creates nitrAte. Now, nitrAte is not as toxic, but in order to keep it in tolerable levels is by water changes. If you have understocked tanks, you can go two weeks, or even three without a water change. Some do them monthly, but if you have a fully stocked tank, this can be hard on the fish and will likely result in nitrAtes slowly rising over time.

When you clean out your tank with 100% water changes, you are likely killing some of the good bacteria and the tank needs to go through some type of cycling all over again. The bacteria lives in the slime you feel on the glass and decorations. This is in addition to that which grows in the filter.

Another reason is pH. All that fish waste and food waste also results in making the water more acidic. This means if your freshly re-filled tank has a pH of 7.8, the pH will likely lower with time, especially if you don't do partial water changes. By the time you go to do a 100% water change you may be going from a lower pH - lets say 7.4, all the way back up to 7.8. But the poor fish experiences a sudden change. Fish should not be exposed to more than 0.2 change in 24 hours or it can be stressful.

If you don't have kits, take a bag of your water to a fish store. Ask them to check the pH, ammonia, nitrite and nitrate. Now, if you recently did a 100% water change, your numbers may be really good, especially nitrate. But if you are going through a cycle, you will see some ammonia or nitrIte. This is very hard on such fish. Ammonia and nitrite should be zero. NitrAtes want to be under 40ppm.

With all of this in mind, it's hard to say if this fish is sick with a bacterial infection, or is indeed experiencing gas-bubble disease from being added back to the tank before it can de-gas.

I recommend using Melafix, and if you can find it, PimaFix. Salt can be helpful, but all things need to be added gradually. If you have freshwater aquarium salt, use a small disposable glad container with a lid. Put 1 rounded Tbsp of Doc Wellfish freshwater aquarium salt rocks into the container and puncture the lid so tank water can flow in and out (small holes). Sink it and you will see the salt dissolving very slowly over several days. Gradual is good. Rapid salinity change is hard on them, but even sensitive fish can handle very gradual changes. If you have cories, plecs or other such fish in this tank, you may want to use only level Tbsp instead.

No guarantees this will help, but the 100% water changes with fish transfers have to stop. It's very hard on them and hard on you too!!!

I hope I didn't throw too much at you.

Oh My, fishyhelper. Your water changes are wayyy too much work. We don't do 100% water changes as these are very stressful as you can see. This is a serious issue. Let's talk about the way most people do water changes.

For your 10 and 30 gallons you could do like I do. I store about 7-8, 1 gal containers with dechlorinated water in my basement where my tank is. When I change out 3-4 gallons out of my 20 gal long (15-20% change), I plug the laundry tub with a few inches of hot water and set those jugs in there for just about 3-4 minutes - enough to raise the temp from room temp to the temp of my tank. I use a gravel vac like this: Gravel Vac Link. I do 1/2 my gravel bed one week, and the other half the following saturday. I start the siphon with my mouth and first practiced using a bucket on top of the wash machine, down into a bucket on the floor so I could get the feel of it. I always cup my hand over the end of the tube so that my mouth never touches it. After a quick suck, I quickly drop it into a 4 gallon bucket. By using the smallest gravel vac available, I can work slowly and get stuff really good while not draining too much water too quickly. And, these gravel vacs are cheap. The most water you should change at a time on your 10 gallon is 3 gallons, but if you did just a 2 gallon change weekly, same temp, it would be really, really good. Your 30 gallon shouldn't lose more than 9 gallons which is 30%, but you are further ahead with just a 20% change or 6 gallons.

But such a gravel vac won't be any good for your 60 gallon tank which needs 12 gallons to make 20%. This will be too much work carrying buckets around and filling that many jugs. What people use today, is the Python. This is what it looks like: http://www.drsfostersmith.com/product/prod_display.cfm?pcatid=3910&N=2004+113159. Some people buy the longer tube so that it can reach all the way to a different faucet. even if it's on another floor!!! . It is screwed to a faucet and when you turn the water on, it creates a suction to siphon water out of the tank while cleaning gravel. Then, you change a setting and the tank fills. People put their dechlorinator right into the tank while it is filling and we let it fill in such a way as to splash. This helps de-gas the water. We also match the temp of the new water coming in to that of the tank (since the overall tank temp should not change more than 1F in either direction).

Chances are, the fish is undergoing considerable stress with 100% water changes. This is a huge difference. If you don't do it very often, then the fish could be experiencing the effects of high nitrates, and possibly ammonia or nitrite if the tank is too small.

The most water anyone would change on a regular basis is people with discus fish - up to 50-60% every 2-3 days, but because they are doing it every few days (sensitive fish), the fish don't experience a huge change. The more time that goes by, the harder the larger water changes are on the fish.

With me so far?

Last edited by Cory_Di at 02-Dec-2004 18:00