ok My oscars got a broken jaw. bottom lip is split in the middle and I can clearly see the bone is out of place under the skin and moving as the fish breaths.

I have been here before with another fish with the very same injury after fighting. this fish lasted may wks without feeding before dieing. This was a few yrs back now.

i have been told by a few people that this injury can repair. i have not seen any improvement with it at all and as the last fish did it now sits at the bottom of the tank not feeding or moving. i need to know has anyone had a fish and has actually had this type of injury repair. i can't see how the bone can repair with so much movement while breathing. if the case is that Its not going to repair i need to put the fish out of pain. have you actually seen it repair?

i am not sure if just meds will help.. there are some vets that do these kind of surgeries.. not too sure if you will be able to find them locally..

again i feel very sorry for your fish...

There is not actual bone at the very front of the jaw so it's not as if solid bone has got to knit together. Difficult to say, I think these things should heal okay if they are not too bad.

i had tended a tank with injured oscar...dislocated jaw too for grabbing
a fish too big to swallow. it heals in two weeks but needs to be isolated
so that no body bully him/her. in your case, i believe it will heal too
but needs to be isolated also.

my Survivor had damaged jaw a few weeks ago and the muscle in the left
cheek was remove. he is healed now without that cheek muscle

i too have had a few fish which have sustained injuries to their mouths and jaws albeit not as extensive as your seems to be. the first was on oscar who hit the lid of the tank too hard while going after some shrimp. the damage did seems to be quite sever but after a few weeks it did heal and now it is hardly noticable. the second was with my male jag who in a feeding frenzy smashed himself into the glass of the tank. this injury was more sever than the other and took almost 2 months to heal in which time he ate very little. but eventually it did heal and now he eats normally again although he cannot completely close his mouth any more.

i think that if your oscar can eat in time he will adapt and become well again.

He has one good thing on his side, he ate like a pig all the time so i am very confident he will last 2 months without food. he tried to mouth food but gave up. he is no longer being bullied and I don't think he got bullied at all but was the bully himself that came off the worst. i am pretty certain it was just a show of mouth at the wrong time. i am glad you all think he's in with a chance. only a few mins after posting this I fitted a power head to make a strong current. it seams to have made oscar more lively and has swam around the 1st time in a wk. a good sign. thanks for the feedback.

My fingers are crossed for you Marcus! I hope you can see him through!

Yes, fingers crossed and waiting for an update.
I have a cactus pleco that snapped his tailspine some time ago.
It totally severed and i couldn't imagine it healing.
Now the endpart of his tail fell off and the other end has grown back a half an ich in the last weeks!
Hope your fish amazes you too with his recovery!

i decided i need to have a look at how bad the jaw was. so netted it out and put a finger in to check things out. seams part of the gill plate is broken too and a small loose bit under the chin. A very large blood clot came out from one gill and once back in the water a fair amount of bleeding.

back in the water so I could decide what to do he seams to be breathing a lot better so I will leave alone and hope it fixes. moveing the clot was a good thing by the look of it.

Hope it helps in his recovery!
Keep us posted!
Fingers crossed.

actually, netting fully grown oscar can cause gill bleeding, whether with injury
or none..... thus, checking an injured one could aggravate the problem.... i just
hope it will not happen to your o....ops... i was just told by an expert in my
place when i move Survivor to the other tank after he was injured too
just sharing that info...