I work at a day program for developmentally disabled adults and we have a oscar that is 21 years old and he is kinda floating around not moving to much, not eating as much and has a white film developing on him. what should I do? is this the end of our oscars life?

Hi
If you could post a picture that would help

Are you sure he's 21 ?

Oh Yeah, welcome to the forum.

yes I am very sure he is 21, as I have a staff that has been here a tad longer than the fish. i dont have a camera :'( ...

Hi and welcome.
Did anything change in maintenance lately?
A white film can be fungus due to bad waterquality, but if nothing changed in his surroundings, that's not likely.
21 years is pretty old and it's hard to tell what's going on, without a picture.
I'm sure someone else can help out.
Good luck!

nothing has changed. his water is changed regularly, the staff does a 50% change. his water temp is 78.8 degrees right now. we did a ick treatment last week thinking maybe that would help, but it didnt seem like it did anything. he has been sitting in the top corner of the tank all morning. were scared.

Hi hun, first off congrats on this age! WOW!!!

Just a quick question, Do you have an air bar in the tank? Treating the tank with any kind of meds causes oxygen depletion in the water. So that might be a problem. Also, after the treatment,did you put carbon in the filter or do a large water change to remove the remainder of the meds?

Hope we can help give him a few more years!

He has 2 giant air bars that go aross the bottom of his tank that he usally loves to swim threw. the tank has been changed. and he has 2 filters with bio-bags in them. Im not the main caretaker of Oscar, so Im giving as much info as I can. I just dont want to see him die.

You say the tank has been changed?
What did they change?
Could it be they installed new filters without cycling them.
That would cause a unhealthy tank with waterpaaameters that can hurt the fish.
Seems not the thing to do after you have been keeping the fish for so long.
That would add up to the years of expierience.

I don't want to see him die either... Lets see... Has he eaten?
Does he lay on the bottom all the time? Or is he active at feeding time?
What have you fed him?
Is it possible that he is constipated?

when i say the tank has been changed i mean the water. he is a very active fish usally. he hasnt been eating like he normally does. he gets fed frozen worm cubes. we tryed feeding him live goldfish years back, but they seemed to make him sick so we stopped. he has eaten the same food for years. he lays at the bottom of the tank sometimes. he moves the rock and lays in his hole. but he is still at the top corner of the tank.

I am at a loss here, The only suggestion I could make is to maybe try another water change. See if that helps. You might also try giving him a night crawler/ earth worm. Oscars love those.

He may just be old, but he may still be reacting to the ick meds! I hope he gets better soon!