Is your Oscar lethargic? One suggestion I recieved for this problem was to add large giant danios, preferably an odd number. My sources told me that danios are quick fish. I actually ended up adding some native river fish to my tank. They all, even the big ones, ended up as food. Right now, all I have is one big piece of PVC pipe and a big rock in the tank. The PVC pipe is actually pretty neat. It makes the tank look kind of modern and fits really well in my living room.

Also, are you sure your tank is large enough? Oskie was in a really small tank for his size and when I moved him, he started swimming a lot more. I also feed him meat (ham, hamburger), occasionally some live food if he's too lethargic for my taste, and very rarely, I give him algae pellets, which he LOVES! These, made for plecos and other algae eaters, are expensive, so Oskie doesn't get them all the time.

I've also read that Oscars will sit on the ground of the tank because they are content. Or they are "sleeping" or they're bored.

I do not have a diseases page but there is a lot of information on the Web. Check out my links page.

I will let you know how I treated my first fish disease, though. My Oscar had a damaged top fin, it was slightly whitish. Being away at college with my fish at home, I figured out the culprit FAST. Dirty water. So I cleaned it, bumped up the temp 2 degrees (to about 78, it was lower during the summer so the water wouldn't heat up too much -- we have no air conditioning) and I added salt on the advice of people on the Cichlid List serve. They recommended 1 tsp per gallon, but I added about half that. Then, a day or two later, I cleaned the water again and added some more salt. My Oscar healed and I changed the water again, this time adding no more salt.

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created: July 6, 1998