Bantam
01-30-2003, 4:03 PM
I have a couple of 3-4 inch oscars in a 70g (US) tank. they share it with 4 clown loaches a reedfish and a red tailed shark. now i know this isn't ok long term but for now i thought it would be ok. all water paramiters are fine. and there is no signs of problem with the other fish.
anyway, when i got in from work today one of the oscars had what looked like fighting injuries - lines of scales missing. this seemed strange because although the red tail is aggresive and sometimes chases the oscars i didn't think it could inflict any real damage. the only other culprit would therefore be the other oscar but they've alway got on like the proverbial house on fire.
i have just been to the pub and when i got in the 'injured' oscar's dorsal fin has for want of a better word decayed. the supporting 'spines' (sorry i dont know the technical term) are still there but the skin in between has eroded. he also seemed to have some sort of growth in his mouth.
at the moment i don't have any facility to quarantine him. so i decided to catch him for a closer look at his mouth. the growth turned out to be a 3/4 grown platy which was a previous resident of the tank that, daft as it sounds, i couldn't catch for love nor money.
that explained the mouth problem but what about everything else? my girlfriend says it was chasing the platy quite aggresively. the body damage could have occured by hitting the rocks that are in there, but the fin i really don't think could have been damaged in that way.
any suggestions will be greatly appreciated because i really don't want to lose this fish, but if its an infection i don't want to endanger any of his tank mates.
sorry about the long post.
thanks in advance
craig
anyway, when i got in from work today one of the oscars had what looked like fighting injuries - lines of scales missing. this seemed strange because although the red tail is aggresive and sometimes chases the oscars i didn't think it could inflict any real damage. the only other culprit would therefore be the other oscar but they've alway got on like the proverbial house on fire.
i have just been to the pub and when i got in the 'injured' oscar's dorsal fin has for want of a better word decayed. the supporting 'spines' (sorry i dont know the technical term) are still there but the skin in between has eroded. he also seemed to have some sort of growth in his mouth.
at the moment i don't have any facility to quarantine him. so i decided to catch him for a closer look at his mouth. the growth turned out to be a 3/4 grown platy which was a previous resident of the tank that, daft as it sounds, i couldn't catch for love nor money.
that explained the mouth problem but what about everything else? my girlfriend says it was chasing the platy quite aggresively. the body damage could have occured by hitting the rocks that are in there, but the fin i really don't think could have been damaged in that way.
any suggestions will be greatly appreciated because i really don't want to lose this fish, but if its an infection i don't want to endanger any of his tank mates.
sorry about the long post.
thanks in advance
craig