I have bought 4 new baby Red Oscars during the last month. Everyone of the have died within the first few days after getting them home. I have 6 Adult Oscars that I've raised from babies so it's not like I haven't done all this before. I first thought that maybe one of the little ones had some kind of disease - maybe ICH? - when I first brought it home with me from the pet store but I don't know. I have never had fish with any kind of disease before so I'm not sure what it even looks like. After seeing the little white spots on the first fish, I've been treating the tank with Melafix every day since. It looks like he's got "frost" around the edges of his fins and around his eyes. Is this what I am dealing with here? I'm open to anyone's suggestions. Please help me with this because I don't know what else to do.

Yes it definately sounds like you have an ick problem if you have a seperate tank (hospital tank) you should take the infected fish out ASAP. If you don't have one then you need to turn the temperature up in your aqaurium and continue with the medication treatment that you have make sure you follow the instructions carefully. Turning the temperature up in your aquarium speeds up the life cycle of the ick disease.

Ich should look like very small(pin head size) white spots all over the fish. fungus will look like cotton wool. melafix will treat fungus but not ich. you need to work out what your fish have got, it sounds like fungus as its on fins and eyes. a temp of 30c for 2 wks will work on ich. there is a chance it could be slime too. if you can post a clear closeup pic of it we could take a look.

it may be worth posting your water conditions. i know you bought new fish and these most likely had the problem but lets check all to be sure.

PS. if you do a search at top right of this page for "is this ich?" there is a post from laimlaimlaim with a very good photo of ich. take a look and compare.