Hello Oscar lover community! I have been reading your forum ever since we got our oscar, but finally I feel the need to post.

My oscar, Caesar, has not been eating. The last time we saw him eat was a 8 days ago. Since then we have put some pellets (usually around 6)in the tank in the evening and he shows no interest in eating, but in the morning they are gone. We are not sure if his tankmate, an algae eater, is eating them at night. We also tried some dried krill and he completely ignored those as well.

Also, Caesar has been breathing kind of heavily and has been sitting at the bottom. He occasionally swims around but for the most part he just hangs out in the bottom of the tank. He is not listless nor does he look like he is in pain, but simply just swims at the bottom and doesn't go to the top. He is not aggressive at all anymore, he just aimlessly sits around.

Lastly, it appears that he is slightly bloated. His sides are a little swollen, but it does not look like a growth. After a little research, I thought he might be constipated so we have been doing 20% water changes and were adding epsom salt. On the first day we added the salt we saw him go #2, but since then we haven't seen anything. It is possible he might be going during the day or at night, but our algea eater eats Caesar's #2 so fast we might not notice it.

Overall he does not appear to be in pain, but there is something clearly wrong with him. His coloring is normal and when he does swim there appears to be no physical problems.

Here are his tank parameters:

Tank: 55 gallons
Nitrate: 15ppm
Nitrite: 0 ppm
Ammonia: 0 ppm
pH: 7.4

We have a bio wheel and two powerheads.

Caesar is about 10 inches and is about 8 years old. We adopted him from my niece almost three years ago and he did not live the best life until we took him in. Unfortunately my camera is not working so I cannot post pictures but I hope my description is detailed enough. Any advise would be greatly appreciated. Caesar is a great fish with a very unique and fun-loving personality. We just want what is best for him.

your water parameter seems to be perfect...but what about temp.

warmer water makes fish/es more active and eats more.
however, the heavy breathing worry me... there must be something
wrong in the tank. why don't you try worms or crickets. o normally
react fast for moving foods.

8 years old o is already an accomplishment...

X2 i would try large earth worm from your garden. it should go straight away. before your oscar stopped feeding did it have a large meal, like feeders or prawns?

when it dose swim around can it hold itself at a given height in the water without sinking. I am just wondering if its go an internal/swim bladder infection?

If your fish is breathing heavily then there is something not right. It could be a case of lack of oxygen in the water, have you made any adjustments to the pipe that returns water back into the tank? Make sure that plenty of surface agitation is being created. However, what worries me is your description of him being slightly bloated. Have you seen him defecatingn at all? Does it look a normal color?

This is an Oscar I had a few years ago , unfortunately it died of a bacterial infection not long after this video was taken

Thank you everyone for your helpful responses!

To answer your questions:

Our temperature right now is between 78-80 degrees (not sure exactly what it is because I am at work right now). When I get home tonight I will increase it 2-4 degrees.

We went out of town for four days and feed Caesar a large amount of pellets everyday before we left. We usually feed him twenty pellets every other day, but instead we fed him 20 pellets for three days in a row. We have had bad luck with feeder fish and did not want to go that route, thus we fed him more than we usually do before we left to ensure he wouldn't be hungry. The day we got back, my fiance fed him his usual amount and in the middle of his feeding he abruptly stopped, and hasn't eaten since (that was Monday, 2/15).

We will try to feed him a large worm tonight.

We last saw him defecate exactly a week ago today. It was the same color as his food (red). This was the first day we tried the epsom salt in the water. His bloating is equal on both sides.

He can hold his weight when he swims. In fact, this morning he was not at the bottom of the tank, but in the middle. He was just staying still in the same place. He swam around a little, even at the top of the tank, and does not sway or anything.

His heavy breathing is very similar to the breathing in the video. He has breathed like this before, but usually it is because he was irritated. It has never lasted this long. We had a bubbler and the water return does add airation to the tank.

Thank you!

looks like we can rule out swim bladder infection, thats a good thing.

Try the following see if this helps -

1> Check for white spots on your oscar
2> Increase the Temp
3> Increase water aggitation cause higher temp and salt will depleat the oxygen retaining capacity of your oscar
4> Turn off the lights
5> Try and introduce some hiding spots for your oscar
6> Do a 30%-40% water change with aggitating the gravel to remove any impurities that the gravel might have
7> Try and crush your pellets and then try to feed. Crushed pellets will sink to the botton and if the fish does not want to come up then they can dig the food out through the gravel.
8> With the Oscar gasping, I would presume that you might need a stone to introduce more oxygen
9> Try some small feeder fish
Question -

1> Do you have any tank mates? If so - They might be troubling the little guy

An update....

We have increased the temperature to 82 degrees. We put two worms in Caesar's tank and he did not go after them. We have been doing 20% water changes everyday for the past week. There are no white spots on Caesar.

I will try to crush some pellets and see if it works. I try to stay away from feeder fish because the first time we tried them Caesar got a very bad case of HITH. I don't know if the two correlated or not, but I am too afraid to try again.

He has one tankmate, an algae eater. The two have always gotten along and the algae eater does not seem to be bothering Caesar.

We stopped treating his tank with epsom salt about 5 days ago, should we try again? What about Melafix? Beside the fact that he is not eating and swimming with less enthusiasm, Caesar acts fine. He just seems indifferent to life. I don't know what to do...

I personally wouldn't use the melafix. its great for cuts, wounds but when a fish is breathing heavy it could make things worst. salts i wouldn't use if it didn't help first time round.

are you doing the 20% water change cos hes poorly? or part of your normal maintenance? may be go back to your normal water change. over doing things can stress the fish at times. if hes not eating your water should stay clean for longer. i would probably add some glass shrimp as they may tempt him and can stay in the tank without dirtying it.

if i was going to add meds at all I would go for met blue. it covers a wide range of problems but knocks your filter out. cos you can't pin point the problem its a good choice but again it may make things worst cos the heavy breathing. there is always the chance your fish has a problem that can't be cured but is not visible. I hope not but its worth keeping in mind, cos if that's the case all you do will not help. i would do as I first suggested and hold off meds a little longer.

this the problem with me.... i never had such actual experience for such medication
and i never had treated my own fish... thus..my knowledge on application of med
is limited... that is why i always say "pristine water and varied foods is always
the first defense against fish illnesses"... melafix for one will render your fish
to refuse food further...it may aggravate your situation...just my thought.

Thank you everyone for your advise.

Unfortunately Caesar passed away this morning. We think he must have had an internal problem that we could not fix. He was a good fish that brought us much laughter and entertainment, he will truly be missed.

So Sorry for your loss