Oscars finally had enough?

I would be doing bigger water changes for starters. Don't know if it will help the fish but 15% every 2 weeks isn't enough for fish like oscars.

What are you feeding them? Have you tried switching to something like frozen blood worms. They are messy but are nutritious.

A variety of food is a good thing for fish. But ultimatley they can survive for quite awhile without eating. The trick is to make sure that they do start eating sometime soon.

Agreed, I wouldn't do anything less than 25% every week. A messy fish like an oscar will raise the nitrates WAY too high to keep in check with water changes every two weeks.

With 2 oscars very much so. Normally nitrates are not too harmful to fish but they build up quick and eventually do become harmful to fish. Weekly water changes are a must with the big fish.

Why are you changing filter media? IS it a sponge? If so I would just rinse it out and keep using it. I have been using the same sponge media for over a year now and still going strong. No need getting rid of all that good bacteria.

Then watch out for any ammonia and nitrite spikes int he water quality and actually be prepapred for greater water changes while the bacterial load rebuilds in the media. It shouldn't take too long.

Of course the media isn't the only place for bacteria and fungus to grow so if the fin rot prepetrator is still in your tank the only really way to get rid of it would be to strip the tank down.

Poor water quality can often be seen as fin rot. So if it were my tank I would be doing large water changes each week. This will also help avoid the dreaded oscar hole in the head. If you don't know about this disease then I would suggest doing a search on the internet and reading about it. It is generally associated with poor water quality and a poor diet.

My Oscar near the same age and size lost appetite for food he loved and seemed to have stopped growing early. Also(I don't know if you have introduced anything that should spread infection, but mine also had several fungal infections with no new living creatures added(food or pets), and never having been stressed, all of which seemed to heal fully. Then I saw a white string hanging out of his anus which I learned is a tell tale sign of an intestinal parasite. This was maybe two months ago. So I treated him with levamisol in the form of discomed and he didn't seem to get better, not that he was acting as if he were in pain, but his appetite didn't increase much if any so after a week of no drugs I treated him with metronazidole, both of which I administered by soaking his food, and I also treated his only tankmate which didn't show any symptoms but I thought better safe than sorry though it seems like its unlikely to have been transmitted through the water. Anyway his appetite is much improved and he may be growing again, hard to say for sure, but his appetite isn't as strong as it seemed to be at one point. Also when he really seemed to lose his appetite was shortly after i moved him up to 5 smaller feedings a day(I was very careful to never overfeed him especially then), apparently they can be carrying the parasite and not show symptoms until they're being really well fed. Because of the facts that his appetite may not be fully back, I saw some posts or maybe it was other material that made it seem like intestinal parasites are very persistent, and the drugs when administered correctly seem pretty safe(some people say metronazidole is very hard to overdose, though I wouldn't f--k around pushing it), I'm going to give him that same course of treatment again soon. Sorry for the lack of paragraphs and any spelling erros here it's way past bedtime, I'm trying to finish Far Cry , its like a drug too .

You might try a week of metro soaked food, starve him for a day first just don't look at his big sad eyes and only give him food thats soaked in metro for that week(to make sure he eats it) . You can get it cheap at Drsfostersmith, I followed the directions and did the garlic guard and focus thing with it, though those last two may be hype. I don't know what kind of food you give him but if you use pellets you can put like two tablespoons of garlic guard and 2 measures of focus and one measure of metro and stir it up and soak your pellets in it, then feed them to him while they're still wet or moist(seachem told me for focus to bind drugs to food it has to stay wet or moist(which is what makes me think hype btw, I figured wtf though)) then if you want to soak more and put them in some tupperware or something in the fridge they'll stay moist, and you can save the mixture. They told me to soak the pellets for 10 minutes but they totally start breaking down long before then, I just keep the mix stirred really well and get them submerged in it for maybe a minute.

Originally posted by Deniz
[I did 1 %15 water change since then (2 weeks ago) and another is due this weekend but is the lack of appetite normal? [/B]

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That is your problem. Too small / infrequent water changes can have catastrophic consequences. Try doing 40% water changes 2 x a week til your fish get better.