My two tiger oscars caught a case of the ick/ich, so I treated them by taking out the carbon filter and using quick cure and raising the temperature to 86 degrees F. for ten days. All the white spots cleared up so I did a 30% water change and replaced the carbon filter and added 1 1/2 tablespoons of aquarium pharmaceuticuls salt per 5 gallons of water just to make sure the white spots would not come back and lowered the temp to 84 F. Before my oscars got sick my water parameters were perfect, now they are reading PH-7.4, Ammonia-1.0, Nitrite-1.0, Nitrate-5.0. I'm sure that the reason the water parameters have gone crazy is because of all the treatments given to the oscars but will they ever go back to normal or should I be worried.

an ammonia and nitrite reading of 1 is reason for concern. i would do a 50% water change asap and follow that up with 30% water changes every other day until your ammonia and nitrites read 0. it sounds like your treatment might have damaged your bacteria colony and only time will reestablish it.

Thanks for the advice, I will do what you said.

I have just one more question! When i feed my oscars food (one pellet at a time) seems to be mostly coming out of their gills instead of being injested, which never happened before, I am assuming this is because of my crazy water parameters.

Most ick formulas include one of the "green" compounds (e.g. victoria green, malachite green) and some formaline, which will give false positives on Ammonia readings if your Test use the "Nessler" reagent; that will not happen with the salicylate reagent.

I doubt you would jeopardize your cycle if you dosed properly.

However your nitrite spike certainly suggest a mayor problem. I would go for a huge water change and measure 30 minutes afterwards. Keep monitoring your water.

As for fish food debris going out through the gills, I consider that as normal, even a constant, especially with large sized pellets on my two Oscars. The smaller cichlids in the tank take care of that promptly.

Pepe
Santo Domingo

like pepe stated food comming from the oscars gills is normal. this is part of the reason oscars need big filtration. if you have smaller tankmates in with your oscar they will eat some of the food that fall from the gills