Hey guys, i noticed tonight that one of my youngling long fin tiger oscar in a group tank of 6 has a fuzzy sides that look white and his coloured down to a paler colour like when oscars are upset, also one fin look pretty bad and the other looks a bit mangled :(...I've since done a water change and the ph, and other water factors are within limits but what should i do to treat? never had a fish get sick! :sook:

I'm gonna get melafix tomorrow from my LFS, anything else you guys could recommend? his looking rather sad and swimming only around the filter...i just dont want him to die as i have 2 of each type of oscar availible to me.

All recommendations welcome!!! :thanks:

it died last night :( :( :(

:rip: So sorry to hear that.

For preventive purposes I have a few questions.
What size tank are they in?
How big are they?
Are there adequit hiding places for everyone to avoid being picked on?
What is your water change schedual?

I would hate for you to loose more because of stress.

Ouch, I'm sorry dude. :(

Sorry to hear :rip:

He mustov scraped against something and injured himself for the fuzzies to affect one side of his body. :(

well my aquarium guy that i'm friends with thinks my 2 bigger reds was at fault and beat him up...i was thinking it was velvet too so was gonna treat the tank for that but none of the others were affected and a blue one had a chunk on one side from an obvious attack (and that one was the smallest). I have added the required amount of rock salts though and turned the temp down a couple degrees just in case it is velvet...

He ended up trading the 3 smaller ones for a largeish synodontis.m for my larger africans tank.

1. 2 foot x 18 inch x 18 inch
2. Most were around 1.5 - 2 inch long, except the reds which are 2.5 - 3 inch long
3. Not really, its just a few larger rocks protruding out of the crush coral substrate and the internal filter
4. I change 1/3 - 1/2 the water weekly due to the amount of waist oscars make

So now the tank only has the 2 reds i originally had in their, i got all of them cheap so thought they'd be ok until they were bigger (6 inch or so when they show signs of territorial aggression). At least taking the blues (which seem to be rare) back to my friends fish store they can goto an owner that only wants them as i think when they reach full size they'd be gorgeous but my reds i couldnt part with since they do funny tricks when i tap on the glass in spots and seem to react so well to me...oscars truly are like a puppy dog of the fish world!

Thanks everyone, i dont like losing fishies...i've only ever lost one before this and it was due to old age.

oh and i was looking to put them all into a 4 foot tank but i may just put them in a 3 foot when they get a little bigger when i set my other 3 footer up with an arowana that has recently caught my eye ;)

I tend to agree with your friend, it sounds like they were developing a pecking order and the weekest and smallest was just the first to go. I think you did right by lightening the load.

Are you planning on these tanks holding these fish for a while, or were you saying that you are getting rid of the O's when they get to 6 inches? If you plan on keeping the O's, you will definatly need a much bigger tank, check out some of VIP's oscar related threads in New World Cichlids.

i maybe offloading them, not sure just yet...but even with only 2 in the tank the smaller one is still being bullied a bit so time for some more stuff to go in the tank i think so the smaller one can hide if needs be.

just put a big flat piece of drift wood in that has lots of coverage...any advice to lowering aggression? :(

You might try putting in some dither fish so that the bigger one has somthing smaller to take out his aggression on.

I soughta know the term of a dither fish, but with a oscar what do you think would make a good subject for that? hopefully someone that knows oscars well could chime in cause i'd rather not lose another as the two i have now are quite nice :)




this should give a rough overview of the size diff between the two oscars.

i have had good luck with silverdollars. for what you need them for they would actually be considered target fish, which is the purpose they serve in my tank as well. dithers are actually fish you use to coax shy fish out into the open.:)

hmm, silver dollars are a little slow for cichlids, in my opinion, maybe a good fish for that would be tinfoil barbs?, though there size can be a problem If you can afford a large enough tank, maybe 70 gallons or so, within.. before they get too big, then tinfoils would be a great idea,

huh, i haven't noticed my SD's being slow swimmers. what makes you say they may be too slow? just curious not trying to bust your chops or anything. i have seen mine out maneuver all of my bigger cichlids and outrun them.