HI all,

I'm new to this, i hope u all can advice me.

I have an albino oscar for almost a year now, it has always been healthy and fine and eating well. BUt just last week after i did a 30% water change (do it once every 2 weeks) and broke my heater (which i've replaced) my oscar has stopped eating completly. I usually feed it Hikari Gold and occasional 5cm feeder fish.

The oscar is in a 4ft tank (alone). I'm running an Eheim filter professional for up to 800L. Water conditions are good as tested by me and the local aquarium. Temp was below 20 degress celcius for few days but being fixed now, got the biggest Jager heater now temp at 26.

The oscar's colour is fine, has not lightened at all, but gone slightly brighter for some reason. swimming around but slow (NOT flopping to one side at all). I've left 2 feeder fish in the tank, but my oscar just ignores them. usually as soon as the feeder hits the water, the oscar will devour it immediately. As for the dry food, now it will just look at it and completely ignore it. Nil signs of HITH.

PLease advice as it is day 9 since it last ate.

Thanks

welcome to Oscarfishlover

This isn't as uncommon as you may think. I have had Oscars that refuse to eat before, and I've come across many people in the same situation. I don't think anyone can tell you why they do it. Obviously the first thing to do is test your water, ammonia, nitrites, nitrates and pH. You obviously want to rule out poor water conditions before you do anything.

You said your water is okay so you can put that to one side. Whereabouts do you get your feeders from? you do have to do a little careful when buying live fish for your Oscars. You do you run a small risk of introducing disease/parasites if you do you obtain live fish from an outside source. For this reason, I would advise anyone who wants to feed live fish to their Oscar to either breed the live fish themselves ,ol quarantine them for a couple of weeks just to be on the safe side.

Okay, back to your Oscar. Have a good look at the Oscar, how is it behaving? Is it breathing heavily , is it hanging at the surface, or around the water inlet? Does it completely ignore food. When you put it in? For the next two or three days, don't try and feed the fish at all. Then put a couple pellets in and see what happens. See if your local fish shop sell live shrimp, you could try and trigger the Oscar into feeding with live food such as shrimp, it has been known to work.

We do have to address the fact that fish will go off their food if something is wrong. However, if the fish is ill, they normally shows signs such as stress, heavy breathing, so this is something to look out for. If you could get back to us with a few answers , we can take it from there

Thanks OFL for your reply,


I usually get the feeders from the local aquarium, been buying things from them for years now and never had any problems. The feeders are just some type of gold fish. they are bronzy looking.

As for the oscar, its not breathing heavily at all. I spent 3 hours in a row infront of it today, attempting to study it. it is spending quite a bit of time near the surface but NOT going up to breathe. then after a while it'll wonder down and "drift" around slowly, usually its very active, normally as soon as it sees me it'll swim facing the glass closest to me like crazy.

When i put the dry Hikari Gold pellet in the water (as i feed it one at a time) he will "sometimes" swim close to it as though to smell it then ignore it, other times it'll not even pay attention to it. I've been feeding it Hikari Gold for as long as i can remember. It like it better than feeders and it does NOT eat beef heart at all. I did notice its loosing a bit of weight. It'll be day 11 tomorrow.

Its really hard to find live shrimps here in Melbourne, Australia, think in my entire life only seen it once.

in the past i fed it live garden worms, even had my own organic worm farm just for the oscar. but it has seeemed to not like it anymore.

Will cold temps cause the oscar to stop eating? as i said earlier i broke my heater on the day before he stopped feeding (forgot to turn if off during water change and it cracked). and i cleaned the filters the day before as well and 30% water change, dont know if any of these might had contributed.

My cousin's a general vet and he said to be prepare to feed it to my cat if it doesnt improve . He's stumped.

Thanks again so much for your advice. hope after installing this $120 heater today, it'll be better tomorrow when i wake up. will update its changes (if any) after i get up.

Melbourne Australia? I'm just watching neighbors as I write this:lol:

Unfortunately, your cousin could well be right [not sure about feeding it to the cat:S ]don't try and feed the fish for 3 days. and then try and find something he's never had before, or try something that moves, a worm could be good.

Your fish isn't breathing heavily, at least that is something, all the fish I've ever had been ill and then died have always breathed heavily.

If after three days of no feeding your Oscar still refuses to eat, I'm afraid I won't realy be able to give you any more advice apart from just wait it out and then consider euthanasia if it goes on for too long. I know that seems drastic, but any living creature needs to eat to survive, if they stop eating, there is obviously something not right.

you could try Maggots and mealworm, maybe something smaller and lighter may work? I think the same dont feed at all for a few days then try. you could try putting something in the tank that he may find interesting?? coloured stones?? a safe toy?? and see if he is interested. I had a lovely red oscar that done the same, just gave up eating, I never did find out why as he died. But saying that all is not lost yet. best of luck

Thanks for all your help guys.

when i got up today it's still the same, swimming aorund not as slow now, cos raised water temp to 27 celcius.

i took your advice and bought some beef heart and live brine shrimp (substitute from the prawn) when the brine shrimp hit the water, as trhe same would look at it and itgnire it, i mean BS does look very tiny compared to the oscar. but the beef heart was interesting.

when i placed it in the water, he swam up to it and took it into its mouth for a few secs and spat it out. then i kept pushing the beef heart towards it and this time it took it, BUT chewed it up minced it and spat it all out. at theis point i was swearing at my oscar in frustration:angry:. my mum thought i was loosing it oh it didnt take live worms too, spat it back out.

i just removed ALL the feeders, will wait till sunday, then i'll take one of the live feeders (the bigger) one and fillet it and feed it to the oscar. as for the hikari gold it's still ignoring it, but did notice occassionally chasing the feeder half heartedly.

it does have its toy in there, a realy tiny ceremic flower pot, usually it'll put its face in it and push it all aorund the tank and sometimes it'll bury its face in the pot and sleep. but now not interested in it at all.

what do u all think now

I know you have tested your water conditions but can you check them again and post results please. i say this cos the conditions can change over a very short time. you could try a tank mate (thats not food) but this could be risky as he may be unwell and give same thing to tank mate?? but if water is ok and hes not unwell something is upsetting him.A small tank mate around 6"-8" may perk him up.But not another oscar as your tank will not take it.

Ph is btn 6-7, everythying else is negative

The fact that your oscar tried to eat is a positive sign. Keep trying different food and hopefully he will eat something. And keep trying the beefheart

Sometimes oscars just stop eating but usually it doesnt go on for 9 (now 12) days. Keep trying and keep your fingers crossed