Oscar, where you at dawg?

[Deniz]

My sister came to me at midnight last night saying my big oscar was dying. :sad

I went to see and he was floating on his side, and the slightly smaller one was a bit tilted down at the bottom.

I turned the light on, opened the lid and even poked it and it only slightly moved then resumed floating on his side. So I commenced water tests.

pH 7.2
Ammonia 0
NO2 0.1

Seems fine to me.

By this time the oscar started moving around and wagging its tail at me as if it thought it was morning feeding time already.

I went to bed seeing that they are fine and they were bright eyed and bushy tailed this morning. :confused:

Whats going on? Is it normal for an oscar to float on his side when sleeping?

[Lila]

He could be constipated. When my oscars did that, we found out that was the problem. Does his belly seem a little swelled or does it look like there is possibly some feces stuck in the anal?

There is a remedy for it too!

You need espon salt.

[PumaWard]

NO2 is nitrite, so .1 isn't all that good. I would do a water change and add some table salt to the tank. 1 tablespoon per five gallons w/out catfish or loaches. 1 tablespoon per 10g with catfish and loaches. If it's a nitrite problem, the salt will help them out along with the water changes.

[Lila]

Holy cow...I didn't even notice that....

*Slaps forehead really hard!*

[Deniz]

uh, its a freshwater tank, salt doesnt go well with freshwater fish... does it?

[Tightdog1]

no you can put salt into it, it will do the fish good, they just dont like large amounts of salt, stick to what pumaward said about the treatment.

[Deniz]

I never heard of that before, how do i do it? do i do it all the time? to all my tanks?

[peifc]

Use aquarium salt.

Aquarium salt (for freshwater fish) can help a bit on the fish breathing.

I put some aquarium salt every time I do water change. It's helpful to certain point, but it doesn't cure anything.

Deniz, you can find aquarium salt in any aquarium or pet store. Just make sure that the aquarium salt is for freshwater fish not for salt water fish.