Well, today was a very sad day. I have had a red tiger oscar for about 7 months, he was about 6 or 7 inches long and housed in a 40 gallon breeder tank. My water had turned very cloudy a few days ago and I noticed that my Oscar was acting differently. He didn't have HITH, and I couldn't tell anything wrong with him. I added in some MelaFix for a couple days, hoping he would act normal again, but no luck. Yesterday when I came home from work, he was virtually non-moving. I actually thought he was dead, but when I touched him with the net he started swimming like normal. Then today when I came home, he was on the bottom of the tank on his back. That's when I noticed the large red sore on his bottom side right between his gills. I don't know if it was an injury, because he had been known to jet around the tank and scratch his head, but it seemed like it wasn't. I immeadiately changed half the water in hopes of saving him. I added some more MelaFix and sat there. He was now stuck to the intake of my filter. I turned off the filter and he floated across the tank. I could see his gills move every 6 or 7 seconds, but it was obvious that he was in great pain. I then scooped him up in the net, in which he didn't move one bit. This is incredible because he always flales around like a chicken with his head cut off. He just set there and didn't move one bit. I was so sad. I could then see further sores on his side, looked like dark spots. I placed him in a bucket with a few gallons of water in it. He lay on his side, not moving at all, taking a breath every 15 or 20 seconds. I decided to end his life to end the pain he must have been going through. I won't go into great detail, but I chose to use a large rock behind my house. It was a very hard and sad thing to do. I couldn't imagine myself crushing the one I had spent so much time with. I now have an empty tank, that I had been staring at for awhile. I hope those of you who have never had to kill your fish ever have to, and for those who have, I hope you don't have to do it anymore. It's incredibly sad, and it made me feel guilty, like I was the one responsible for him and the only one who had a chance to fix him. I did my best though, I just miss him. I may try my luck with another, but not for awhile. I think I may clean out the tank and arrange it differently. Anyways, I just wanted to type this to tell some poeple who would understand how I feel. Thanks for reading,
John
John