I'm sorry my first post has to be in an Emergency Thread, but this thats what it is, an Emergency.

For 10 months now my Oscar's fish health been deteriorating after he developed ulcer, from filthy aquarium, unclean by my family while I was away at college. Ever since, then we've been trying to treat his infections and ulcers, however ignorance and poor execution slowed down merely slowed down his deterioration, but didn't stop it. His face is pretty much covered by 70% ulcers. He's always grasping for air, he hardly ate for the last 4 months, and hasn't ate at all (from what I saw) in the last month.

Now I feel he's at a critical point, and I REALLY need advice. I mean, its not like my family didn't try to heal him, we gave him medication for several months, but we kept him a 40 gallon tank, and gave him medication several days at a time and then stopped. (It was these poor execution that didn't help, we just didn't know how to approach it before.)

Anyways for the past 3 months, I finally switched him into a 10 gallon "medication" tank. He doesn't seem all stress about the confined space, and we didn't plan to keep him that long in the tank. It we have, and I think we will, until he's healed up. And for the last two months we've been medicating him with Tetracycline and Melafix practically daily, with filter(no carbon, just filter) and water 25-40% water changes every 3-4 days to prevent over-saturating the tank with medicine, cloudiness, dye. When we do change the water, we made sure to treat the water with API Stress Coat and Stress Enzyme

Anwways, about two weeks ago, we stop medicating the fish, because he seems to be improving. And we felt he could use some clean water for a change, since he's hardly ever eats and move when the water is medicated, we felt he might regain his appetite. BIG MISTAKE!! In about a week he was on his side, developed fungi on his ulcer. And right now here lays my dilemma what should I do?

I mean mom began treating him with Melafix daily again, and I did my water change. And he's miraculously finally got out of that state, and is upright, but is immobile. But in this fragile state I don't know what I should do. Should I put him on medication again (this time Triple Sulfa) to deal with the fungus. I'm just scared I might do more harm then good.

My biggest concern is food. If the infection doesn't kill him first, his reluctance to eat will. He literally hasn't eaten in a month, we for while tried feeding him "HBH Oscar Show," but all he does is spit it out of his gills, now he won't eat it at all. But thats the only thing that would sink, and the only thing that he can reach.

Other fish food such as Hikari food, floats, and unforunately he can't swim up to the surface. I just got him Aqueon Ciclid "Jumbo" Stick since they advertise its "Slow Sink" but it doesn't seem like he has the appetite for it. What should I try to feed him? and how do I get him to eat? Its really bad, he's feces been transparent with spec of brown spots, for the past months. Is there vitamins that I can drop in his water?

PLEASE HELP?!!!

I don't want him to die, I rescued him from neglectful relatives who left him outside in a bucket. And I kind of bonded with him, I made just one big mistake, and everything went down hill. But he's a fighter, and has been striding to live, so it seems euthanizing him would be the wrong thing to do after all he worked hard for.

first good on you for trying to help this Oscar, I applaud you.

Could you possibly provide some photos for us to see? At least it would give us an idea of what we are dealing with. I strongly suspect your Oscar is suffering from hole in the head disease, this is normally a condition that is related to poor water conditions.

I don't think melafix is the correct medication to use at the moment, I think your fish's condition is a little more advanced than just having cuts and abrasions, this is normally what melafix is good for. I'm guessing that you are in the States because this message was posted quite a few hours ago when I was tucked up in bed. You do have different medications over there than us here in the UK so it is sometimes difficult to suggest something.

One very important thing you must do is test the water for ammonia, nitrite, nitrate and pH. Could you possibly do this and give me the exact results? Treating hole in the head disease can be difficult if it is advanced, keeping the water in very good condition can often have miraculous results and even heal it up completely. To have any chance of healing your fish and hopefully saving it, the water conditions must be excellent, this means ammonia and nitrite must be zero and no higher at all times, nitrate should be kept no higher than 20 ppm, lower if possible.

The fact that your fish is breathing heavily is also not really a good sign. This could be down to various factors, lack of oxygen in the water, toxins in the water, and of course stress. Is your water being oxygenated enough? what kind of filtration have you got on the tank at the moment? When the water enters the tank, is agitating the surface a lot? If the answer is no, then there could be a lack of oxygen in the water which is why your fish could be breathing heavily. However, the fact that your fish hasn't eaten for so long indicates that it obviously isn't feeling very well, it is probably stress which is why it is breathing heavily. Just let me reiterate what I have already said, please check for ammonia and nitrite, this is vitally important. A lot of people start medicating their tank without even testing the water first, if you try medicate tank with poor water conditions, you won't get anywhere. Also, you don't want to be changing your water whilst you are medicating the tank, you would just be removing the medication. If it's a five day course, don't change the water in those five days, only a day after you have finished medicating the tank. Then you can leave it for a couple of days and medicate the tank again. However, if the medication doesn't work on the first few occasions, it isn't really worth trying it again, try something else.

Unfortunately I haven't got a miracle remedy to get your fish eating again. It's obviously ill, that's why it's not eating as I have already said. If you are getting fungus growing which rather sounds like a secondary infection then get yourself a good fungal remedy, hopefully this will work.

I could go on forever but it probably won't help you much since I'm here and you are there. This seems to have been going on for a long time, it really depends on how much damage has been done to Oscar to whether we can save it or not. if the immune system has been severely compromised, then there may be nothing we can do.

If you are going to keep the Oscar in the medication tank, you have got to make sure the water is in good condition at all times.

Could you tell me whether you are in the States or not? Sorry I can't be much more help, please get the information to me as soon as possible.

I also suspect these ulcers are in fact hole in the head (HITH). Any chance of a pic

The only way to treat this is good water quality. It may be too late for your fish because of the lack of eating and the lack of mobility but its always worth a try

If i was you i would take your fish out of the medication tank and put him in a large tank. Do as many water changes as possible to keep the water in the best condition possible. A minimum would be 50% once a week or 25% twice a week, but if you can do it do 25% as often as your can