Hi everyone! Newbie here and got some questions. So I had an Oscar that was aprox. 3-4 yrs old die reccently =( and I take full responsibility for its death I didn't do the required maitenance regularly for my fish. The Oscar was my old roomates and he left it behind when he moved out so I didnt have it for the whole 3-4 years, had it for aprox. 7 months. I got a bit attached to the fish and am ready to do what ever is necesary to care and maintain a new Oscar, but have had bad luck with the last two new Oscars, they have both died on me within a week. After the original Oscar died I emptied the tank out, put new rocks in it, conditioned the water, etc. but for some reason the Oscars keep dying on me! The only other fish I have in the take are a Plecostomus, (3 yrs old) and a Chichlid (about 2 weeks old) been in my tank for that long anyway which seem to be doing fine. After both Oscars died I did a 1/3 water change, cleaned the rocks, and as I have said I am new to this, running out of ideas! The PH level is roughly 7.6 any suggestions?

when you set up the tank after the older oscar died did you cycle the tank properly? also can you give ammonia nitrate and nitrite readings?

Yeah it was cycled for about a month or so. As far as the ammonia/nitrate/nitrite readings, no. Should I get a test kit from my local pet store? If so what should I get. Sorry if this sounds so elementary to you, as I said I'm a newbie.

welcome to oscarfishlover.I strongly suspect that your Oscars died of toxic poisoning. Yes, you need to get some test kits. Ammonia, nitrite, nitrates and pH. I would recommend liquid test kits. I have had various over the years, the two I would recommend are Tetra, and aquarium pharmaceuticals, the latter being my favourite.

Could you also tell us the size of your aquarium, and what sort of filtration you have got?

i had a similar problem when i did not have enough bio filtration i did 10 to 20% water changes every 3 days for about a week with a different filter with more bio and my tank straightned right around in bout 2 weeks

Thanks for the feedback! I have a 30 gallon tank (I will be getting a bigger tank within the next 4-6 months) and the filter is a 20-40 gallon HOB.

If your tank is 30gal I strongly advice you wait for a larger tank before getting Oscars. Aim at 100gals minimum so you can properly keep two. Keep in mind that for keeping one single Oscar -with no other fish in the tank- it requires a 55gal tank as minimum. It is amazing how fast they grow up. Mine went form 5 to 9" and 4 to 8" in just three and a half months, and likely will grow more than that, although at slower rate.

I had to keep those two young Tiger Oscars in a 29g bow for a couple of weeks; that particular tank was cycled but couldn't handle their bio-load, even with sparse feeding and filtration at 25+ times tank's volume per hour, so it entered in a mini-cycle, with nitrites raising from 0.25 to 0.50ppm in 24 to 48 hours, so a 50% partial water change was a must, first daily, then every other day, until I moved them into their final home. This is unwanted stress on both the fish and me that I would try to avoid re-experiencing ever.

Pepe
Santo Domingo

pepetj has given you some really good advice there. If you are keeping oscars you will need a large tank. If you want 2 oscars then you really do need a min of 100g and I would say 125g to keep maintaince within a do-a-ble level. with the 30g tank you will be changing water daily to maintain good conditions.if you can get a 150g or more this is even better. a big fish needs a big home.

I never said I planned on having (2) Oscars, the only other fish that will be in the tank is a Chiclid that will grow 6" at the most. You still think (30 U.S. gallons) will be too small of a tank for them both? Again thanks everyone for the feedback.

to comfortably house an oscar for life you will be looking for a MINIMUM tank size of 55 gallons. that's for one oscar alone no tankmates at all. if you plan on having another small cichlid in with him you can start looking in the 75 gallon range.
you will also have to increase the filtration on the tank. hob filters should be rated for 10 times your tank volume per hour. this means if you have a 55 gallon tank them your hob filters should be moving about 550 gallons per hour.

After cleaning the rocks with the vacum, changing 1/3 of the water and conditioning it every 3 or 4 days, my most reccent reading read: Ammonia tested good, (under o ppm) Nitrite tested great at 0 ppm, but my PH tested in between 8.2 & 8.4 Is my tank ready to give it another try?

thats good readings for ammo,mitrite ,and nitrate but your ph is quite hight you want it closer to 7.0 if possible they make buffers you can us to help lower it