CichlidFish.com - Fish That Think.

Hi, i've just found you.

we've got 2 Oscars, approx. 10in, male and female. not had them very long since early sept.

my worry is our girl who was very active is now sitting at bottom of tank, not moving, she has lighten in colour and appears to be gasping. our boy keeps knocking into her in a bid to make her move. she also has white spots/fluff on her fins, from reading other threads is this ich?

please can you give me any suggestions on best medicine.

its heartbreaking, she appears to be leaning on wood/plants in tank. perhaps i've over fed her? i hope this is all it might be.

he's fine no signs of anything.

HI niki and welcome
Ok we needs some other infor to help.
What size tank are they in, what type of filtration.
Do you test the water for ammonia, nitrite, nitrate?
If so can you post the results.

If it looks like someone sprinkled salt on her, then yes that is ich. If its a fuzzy whitish looking then its not ich.
Can you also post the tanks water temp too.
Sooner you can post back, the quicker we can try and figure out whats going on.
Also how offten do you do water changes?

tank is 4ftx2ftx2ft.

partial changes weekly, havn't tested for nutriates, will do that to day, she doesn't look like she's been sprinkled with salt water and its just on her fins, they appear to torn, with white spots.

i cannot access this through out the day, at work, but will reply later.

thank you

further to this morning, i've now completed a 60% water change, tested nitrates and they were abit high. i've been to local aquatics centre who suggested some anti internal bateria stuff, i also have some anti fugus stuff for the fins.

i think the temp may have been a little high about 84 so have lowered that also. fingers crossed.

the boy is still fine.

When you did the water change, did you vacuum the gravel too? Did you clean the filters also?? You said the nitrates where KIND of high.. HOW high??
And yes the temp is way to high.. 76 to 78F is where it should be at..
60% is a lot to change out at one time..But you may have need to do so with the fugus problem..

Doing a water change but not cleaning the filters is not good to keep your water paramiters down as this just feeds it back into the tank..So on every water change, clean the filter BOX and add in new filter media pads..

You did good on the meds, but which ones did THEY get you to buy?? PLEASE dont' use both at the same time.
This is a fungus from bad water conditions combined with high temperatures that have attacted the only place they could, the fins..They are always the most vunerable due to splits in them. The water change wil help here more than anything.. The Meds for Fungus wil kill out the bacteria that is forming on them. Why they want you to use a internal med is beyond me.. I would not use that med for now and only treat for the fins..