I just got my Albino Oscar(Patron) 3in in a 20 gallon for now til it gets alil bigger, about a week ago including my baby convict and zebra chiclid, they were put together at the same time and they seem to be doing fine no fighting or any aggressive behavior, but now (week later) my baby Oscar(Patron) been acting alil weird. He's been opening his mouth real wide randomly, also shivering like he got a cold, and always looking straight up and down. Any suggestion on whats going on? (Tank and temperature are fine)

welcome to the site

now how long have you had your tank setup for? when you say tank is fine could you give the actual mumbers for the water. not that i dont beleive you but i have seen many "perfect" tanks which might have been good for some species but not for oscars. as for the shivering and opening of the mouth i've seen this behaviour in my oscars and i dont think its anything to worry about as long as the fish is not gasping.

the lady who sold me the oscar and the other lil chiclid told me to run the tank for about 24 hr using the Stress Zyme and Aqua Safe, that's what I did, I'm not really sure if my GH is perfect enough, but its about on 60 on the test strip I bought and the KH is about 120 and my PH is on 7.0 NO2 and 3 is on 0, I'm hopefully its good enough or atleast near perfect. I'm hoping the lady that explained everything about the tank and the number on the GH, KH, pH, and also the NO2 an 3 is correct.But so far so good my babies are chasing each other as a playful thing hopefully, but my oscar seem to be looking straight down as if he's looking for something that's what it seem to be I think. Oh, another question just in case if the GH, KH, and pH aren't at the number where its suppose to be, how are you suppose to get to the number where it should be? Do I add more Stress Zyme or the Aqua Clean or is their another way to fix it?

i think you have a tank that is not cycled properly. it can take up to 6 weeks to cycle a tank and make it safe for fish to live in. what i would do in your situation is to do a 50% water change immediatly and then do 30% water changes every day. i would also get a testing kit(i use american pharmaceutical liquid test kit) that test for ammonia nitrites and nitrates. every 2 days you should test your water for ammonia and nitrites. keep doing water changes until both your ammonia and nitrites read zero. you might also look into getting some ammo lock to help in detoxifying the ammonia that is probably present in your tank.

as for the hardness and ph oscars can tolerate a wide range of conditions the key is to keep them constant.

i dont want to overload you with info so for now do the water changes and as soon as you can test the water and get back to us with the ammonia nitrite and nitrate readings.

also on the ofl home page there is an article on how to cycle a tank you should have a look at. good luck to ya


and btw welcome to the site

Thanks alot and one last question if I changed out the water am I suppose to take out my babies in a different bucket and if so how long do I cycle the water til I'm able to put it back into the tank?

you can leave your fish in the tank while this is going on. the importatnt thing here is to keep up the water changes until the tank is cycled. this will happen only after both the nitrite and ammonia reading both fall back to zero.

duting this dont clean your filter and also dont forget to add dechlorinator to the water.

this is fo real now lol one last question (sorry if im asking to much) after i do a 50% water change to the tank do i put couple drops into the tank with the Stress Zyme and also the Aqua Safe into the tank and with the 30% water changed as well too? An also where can i get the dechlorinator?

dechlorinator can be picked up at any lfs in your area. and you can put the stress enzyme in with your water changes if you like it cant hurt.

and there are never to many question we are here to help