So, my husband dies and I am left caring for Oscar & Jack. Don't get me wrong, I have loved watching them grow. BUT , my husband was the fish expert, not me.
I love this website and it's easy to understand information on Red (my oscar). I find myself with a problem now & need some help. The 75 gallon tank has a leak somewhere. Luckily I have an empty 55 gallon tank so I transfered the 2 fish to it. I know it is too small & want to fix or replace the 75 gallon. Anyway, I emptied the water and gravel. Then I removed the 'grates' for the under gravel filter. There was mud there. In this mud (and also in the filter system) there are small white 'pods' the size of sesame seeds. A lot! The are ovalish & easily 'popped' when touched. My fish do not look like they have Ich or any abnormal spots. The 'pods' do not look like the Oscar eggs I viewed here (not round). I have the one 8" Red Oscar and a 6" Jack Demptsy. Please help!
Thank you.

if you could post a picture that would be great but ive never personaly came across them myself

sorry to hear about your husband

I have never heard of these pods. A pic would be good to see what they look like

You may find you tank is now cycling again. You need to test for ammonia, nitrite and nitrate. Ammonia and nitrite should be zero. If it isnt lots of water changes are needed, 20% daily or 50% twice weekly. Or you can add stress zyme but be aware that this turns ammonia into a harmless for of ammonia but it will still show up on your test for ammonia

Undergravel filters are not the best sort for oscars- oscars are too messy. This about buying a nice big external filter for your tank. It should be rated for a tank twice as big as your tank

Here is a picture.
Thanks for telling me about the under gravel thing.

Maybe I got it this time.............

looks to me like poop.ocasionly mine poo very dark and small balls or a few small bals in like a sac maybe it could be them if the fish are healthy and no sighns of disease then i wouldnt worry about i would just clean the tank out well and recycle the tank befor putting the fiush back in and yeah i agree with delboy about the undergravel filter. there not much use with oscars as they are messy eater and poo for fun the like little poop machines. try not to over feed and take as much of the uneaten food out as you can as youl find they spit alot of it back out
if your unsure on how much to feed i feed them a cuple pellets at a time for around 3 minutes they will still beg for more as there extremly greedy also maybe miss one day out the week with feeding i feed all week and dont feed on sundays

thanks for the info..all info greatly appreciated!!
Ever hear of feeding the Oscars night crawlers?
My Dad comes over bringing "treats".... night crawlers.
What do you think?

yeah sure they eat absolutly anything they can fit in there mouth and in the wild its the same anything falls into the water becomes food.
try them live as mine wont eat dead worms just live ones.

but i feed mine on alsorts thye adore eathworms which are easy enough to dig up or find on a wet rainy day. crickets they enjoy. grasshopers theyve had the odd fly.peas ive once gave them a couple beef heart. frozen feederfish. bloodworm snails they ate them as my sister threw a few in from my comunity tank bless her.

but yeah theyl eat anything although some may be picky like mine are with worms
oo ive had this problem once with them stuffing there faces pretending to eat them all as they carnt get enoguh and then when i think its enough they spit them all out and i end up cleaning the remains up. so just give them one at a time making sure they eat them

mine is very picky.

won't eat most veggies I have tried.

loves frozen bloodworms, shrimp. freeze dried krill. Hikari Cichlid Gold pellets (trying to get him to eat Bio-Gold, but he thinks they are too small).

I don't like using live food, but have fed him worms a while back.

Just be cautious of using things your find. Clean off the dirt using a bowl with tank water in it ... and, most importantly, make sure you and your neighbors haven't been using pesticides, fertilizers, and the like. This is the biggest concern with feeding 'wild' food. Did that lizard eat a poisoned roach? Did that earthworm pass through tainted soil? Did that cricket eat from a fertilized plant?

Just be cautious.

Other than that, feed the O what it likes and will eat, while still trying to maintain some balance in there (fiber, vitamins, not too much protein)

A main staple of the diet should be a quality pellet, like Hikari Cichlid Gold. I always say Hikari brand, because they were unaffected by the pet food recall we had last year while other fish brands like HBH and others were. They add vitamins to even the bloodworms and other 'treats'. I have come to trust them after realizing that Oscar Grow by HBH had something poisonous in it (I always wondered why he didn't like it much) ... and from this site, found other big names like Omega One and New Life, had cheap preservative that can be harmful to fish.

The night crawlers come from the store...from a worm farm. I am sure that they do not have any chemicals, but will check.

His favorite are feeder fish, but that can be expensive @29 cents each.

TY for the info on the food products. It's a wonder he has survived this long!
LOL

The night crawlers come from the store...from a worm farm. I am sure that they do not have any chemicals, but will check.

His favorite are feeder fish, but that can be expensive @29 cents each.

TY for the info on the food products. It's a wonder he has survived this long!
LOL

there tough fish and can live to somthing around 12 i think

Steph_b,

First things first, sorry to hear of the loss of your husband...my condolences to you and your family.

The others have given you good advice. The UGF filters are not good oscar tank filters because of the situation you have now. The "mud" as you stated is fish waste that has accumulated under the filter plates, and as it builds up, it the effectiveness of this filtration system declines. Therefore, either an HOB filter or canister filter, or both, would be advised. For an HOB system you will want a 10x turnover or for your 75 gallon application, a filtration system flowing 750 gph. For a canister system, you will want a 4x turnover, or 300 gph for your application. Many people use multiple systems of the same tank for back up purposes in case of failures. Hopefully, this helps.....

As far as the night crawlers go, mine love 'em!

Good luck and best wishes!