Hi all,

I think he is a Red Tiger Oscar as far as I can tell from a book I have.

I was having a curry the other night and they have several fish in a tank. They don't seem to know what they are doing. The tank has been pretty filthy so I told them about cleaning and gave them a gravel cleaner etc recently. Anyway this week I noticed another fish had died (a large Silver Dollar I think it was) and I saw this Oscar was looking extremely poorly. Anyway I managed to convince them to let me take it and I have posted a picture here s3.photobucket.com/albums/y93/hapticutic...nt=Sick-FIsh-004.jpg . He has rotted fins, fungus and open wounds.

I have set up a hospital tank for him - although it's small I think he is better here getting medicated and hopefully it will give him a chance.

I decided he had very little chance where he was.

I have the light off and temperature set to 78 degrees. I am treating him with Melafix and Pimafix.

I bought him some Hikari Cichlid Staple - he did not seem interested this morning. He also ignored some flake I put in just in case.

Should I be treating him with something more potent (see picture of him - link above) or continue as I am.

I have never had an Oscar before but I have five tanks at home with various coldwater and tropical fish.

Any thoughts.

Cheers.

Mike.

how can these bastards sit there and watch the fish get into that kind of condition. I'll tell you something, if I knew the name of this curry house, they would have their own little webpage design telling everyone how bloody cruel they are the animals, then we would see how many people would want to go and eat there then.

anyway, good on you for rescuing it, for Christ's sake don't give it back to them.

Okay, the fish is suffering from severe hole in the head disease and a very bad case of fin rot. Now, whether it's beyond help is difficult to say. I would suggest that you keep the water condition in excellent condition all the time. As for the fin rot, get yourself a medication to treat this. I don't know where you are so have a look online or even better, seek advice from a vet. You may find that the fin don't grow back properly, it doesn't look too good. I think you will need some kind of medication for the hole in the head will start once again, depending on where you are in the world will govern what kind of medications are sold in that country. Tell me where you are and I will give you an idea of what you might be able to get that will help.

I've got to be perfectly honest, hole in the head disease is curable to a certain extent when it gets as bad as your fish. Like I said, check your water every day. If you can keep the nitrate levels below 10 all the time, this will really help. It will obviously mean plenty of small water changes, maybe every other day will stop I would actually suggest doing this for one week and see how the wounds fair up. If they seem to start getting better, keep up with the water changes. If it gets worse even though you are doing water changes, medication will definitely be necessary. But like I said, give it one week with nitrate levels no higher than 10. Make sure that your ammonia and nitrites zero as well, if they're not, this will just make the situation worse. I would also suggest getting good quality pellets, frozen/live shrimp, frozen fish from the fish shop, mealworms/meal worm beetles. This is all good food and should help, if only in a small way

i find it hard to beleive that an eating establishment would have an animal in such terrible shape out for public viewing.

i think you did the right thing in taking him and trying to treat his wounds. hope things work out for you and he makes a full recovery.

Hi OFL,

thanks for all the advice. He's not looking good and still is not taking any food. I went back to the restaraunt last night to check what they had been feeding him on and it turns out to be the same I got for him - Hikari Cichlid Staple.

I'll try him with some frozen shrimp and bloodworm when I get back tonight.

Sadly my water is about Nitrate 40 from the tap so I'll have difficulty keeping it below that level.

It took me more than a year to find out why my Nitrates were always high and I never thought to test my water out of the tap.

Anyway, I live in London, UK.

Thanks again for your advice.

Mike.

I cant believe the condition of that fish. It looks in a real bad way. Good luck with it