Guys:

I have two 3 year old red tiger oscars about 10 "(110 gallon). I live in the northeast of the US and with the storms recently, lost power for 4 days. My tank eventually went down to the low 50's. Both of my guys rested on the bottom. I was able to secure a generator and on the third day got power back to the tank. As the temp rose and stabilized,one of my fish seemed to respond. The other however is in distress. He's opening and closing his mouth rather rapidly and his gills are really opening and closing. I've done a water change, cleaned the filters and increased the temp to 82degrees. While they are both off feed (I feed only dry food) I even went to the pet shop and dropped a half dozen feeder gold fish trying to prompt them to eat. My one guy has responded and is eating the fish, however, the other guy is struggling. What should I do? I hate to see him suffering. I have clove oil. Should I consider ending it for him. Very sad......

George

Sorry to hear that, that is very unfortunate. How long were your filters off?

Have you tested your water for ammonia, nitrite, nitrate and pH. If not, you must do it. It could very well be that the fish has become stressed due to the low temperature, after all they are tropical and will not like it if it gets too cold. However, if you have toxins in your water now, that could be the reason why it is breathing heavily. Unfortunately, adding more fish is not going to help your situation, in fact it can actually make things worse, so please remove any of the fish you put him recently.

Please get back to us with some information on water quality

NO3 negative
NO2 .5
PPM hardness 50
PPM Alkalinity 180
PH 7.2

increase the oxygen in your tank by addind air stones or bubble pad this will work wonders you would be suprised how cold the water can be for your fish my heater failed and i never noticed for ages it was only when i fished out some un eaten food i felt how cold it was and it was really cold . like i say no electric mens no air supply hope it turns out well only euthenase sa a last resort

2 days without power could have compromised your beneficial bacteria.
you should have replaced at least 20% of your water daily to lessen
the bioloads. not moving too much sometime is reservation of energy
while breathing heavily is a sign of poor water condition. adding too
many foods can aggravate the situation.

i suggest you do daily 20% water change to comfort the fishes..
feed sparingly,.. do the water testing to determine water quality....
from there we can evaluate what should be the next move....

Okay, are you saying that your nitrate is 0? Your nitrite is 0.50? your pH is 7.2? what about ammonia?

It is virtually impossible to have a nitrate of Zero. However, if your tank needs to be cycled again then it could be a case that your nitrate is indeed zero. You need to test for ammonia as well.

i believe the tank is in the new cycling process again... 2 days
without power had compromise bb in it unless artificial aeration
had been applied. ( we do it by having elevated drum, fill it with tank
water and allow it to drip back to the tank by gravity, and keep
filling the tank every now and then just to create water movement)

And that is what I am thinking Paul. He did say he got hold of a generator, but how long after that the electricity went out?

two days Penn

That must be off the nitrates that were in the water before the power went out wouldnt just disappear because of power failure. I didnt really understand what his water quality was either.

Ammonia?

Nitrite?

Nitrate?

PH?