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My Oscar seems sick. I recently changed the water about 50% because I hadn't changed the water in awhile and now my oscar seems sick. He just sits at the bottom and doesn't eat anything and shivers sometimes. He is definitely not happy. What did I do? Other than changing the water 50% I didn't do anything different than what I normally do.

I've had him since he was little for like 2 years now and I haven't had any problems. I'm afraid he's going to die.

He's about 9-10 inches long in a 60 gallon tank.

when you changed the water was it near the same temp. as the water you took out? that could have shock/stressed out your Oscar.

Temperature is the same as usual.

He's been on the bottom of the tank for 3 days now. It's really worrying me.

It possible you had a ph crash. This happens when the TDS (total disolved solids) build up in a tank. A large water change can trigger this, the ph will quickly drop, then recover to normal in about 12 hrs. It is commonly refered to as old tank syndrom.
Its quite possible this is what has happend. If the ph crashed, the ammonia spiked, so now your O has been exposed to a large dose of ammonia, which is harmful. O's are very resiliant, and hopefully he/she will recover. As a precaustion, test the tank for the ammonia/nitrite level. If either is high, you might want to change water in 10% amounts till it returns to zero.

Originally posted by Fuzzy
It possible you had a ph crash. This happens when the TDS (total disolved solids) build up in a tank. A large water change can trigger this, the ph will quickly drop, then recover to normal in about 12 hrs. It is commonly refered to as old tank syndrom.
Its quite possible this is what has happend. If the ph crashed, the ammonia spiked, so now your O has been exposed to a large dose of ammonia, which is harmful. O's are very resiliant, and hopefully he/she will recover. As a precaustion, test the tank for the ammonia/nitrite level. If either is high, you might want to change water in 10% amounts till it returns to zero.

It's also possible that your Oscar is simply stressed over the water change itself -- it may have frightened him, and he'll need a few days to become himself again. However, I'd follow Fuzzy's suggestion to test the water and follow up with some partials. But it may be that he's freaked out by the big "event" -- you mentioned that you hadn't changed the water in a while.

--Mark:cool:

Thanks for the advice. I will test the tank now, but maybe it's too late. My oscar is back to acting normal. Next time I won't wait that long between water changes...