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Most health-related issues regarding fish are related to poor water conditions. If the water in an aquarium is not suitable for the fish them problems will start arising. If any of your fish start showing signs of ill health, the first thing to do is a water test. A lot of people jump straight on the forum and starts asking questions about why their fish have suddenly stopped eating, started breathing heavily etc. With all the will in the world, it is very difficult to diagnose problems unless they are obvious. If a fish does start showing signs of ill health, you must test for a ammonia, nitrite, nitrate and pH. You can then post a thread on the forum asking for advice making sure that you tell us exactly what the readings are. These four tests will tell you a lot about what is going on in your aquarium. I suppose it’s a bit like going to the doctor and having your blood tested. Even if you don’t understand the test results, somebody on the forum will, and therefore will be able to advise on the situation.

One of the simplest ways to keep both fish and your aquarium healthily is to carry out regular water changes. If you are stocking your aquarium sensibly then water changes don’t have to be a chore that you dread every week, you should only have to change a maximum of 30% of the water. If you are having to carry out 50 or 60% water changes every week, you obviously have too many fish, or maybe you need to look at other factors such as overfeeding.

One of the main reasons why we carry out water changes to remove/reduce nitrate levels. Nitrate is a byproduct of ammonia and nitrite. Whereas it isn’t anywhere near as toxic as ammonia nitrite, it must be kept as low as possible. When nitrate levels get very high, it can be very stressful for fish. Stress can be a major contributor to disease and illness. There are many conflicting reports that will lead you to believe that nitrate is a killer of fish if it rises above 20 ppm. This information isn’t strictly true, all it does is worry people unduly. There are a few books and websites around that will give you maximum figures that nitrate level should not exceed. These are between 40 and 50 ppm. Now, 50 ppm is a little high in my books, however, 40 ppm is by no means dangerous to your fish. However, the lower the nitrate levels in your tank, the better. If your tank is big enough, isn’t overstocked and you feed your fish sensibly then you shouldn’t have any problem in keeping your nitrate levels well under 40 ppm for most of the week. I myself can keep nitrate levels under 40 quite easily. At the end of the two week period when a water change is carried out, my 300 gallon tank sometimes approaches 40 ppm but that doesn’t worry me whatsoever.

Because some fish keepers tapwater contains nitrate, they have no choice but to keep their fish in fairly high nitrate levels exceeding 40 ppm occasionally. In situations like this, extra tank maintenance will keep everything under control. Like me, my tapwater contains no nitrate at all. It is actually a very good idea to test your water for toxins, you can save a lot of frustration if you are getting unsuitable readings and you can’t work out why it is happening. there are products on the market that removed nitrate from your water. The following links will take you to two companies that sell nitrate filter. Before you go out and buy one of these filters, please understand that they are not like any other filter, you can’t just put them on your tank and expect them to do the job, most of them need setting up properly. Some of them can also have an effect on your pH so this is something else that you need to take into account before using one of these filters. Only use these filters if they are absolutely necessary, nine times out of 10, nitrate can be controlled quite easily with regular water changes. http://www.aquatics-online.co.uk/catalogue/nitrate-filters.asp#product490
http://www.aquaripure.com/

I would suggest any newcomer tests as water on a regular basis for the first few weeks after the tank has cycled properly, and especially when the fish are growing. If you’re tank has a properly established biological filter, you shouldn’t have to worry about ammonia or nitrite. On the other hand, the nitrate level will slowly rise day by day until water changes necessary. You will get to the stage where you can work out when water changes are necessary.

Because water changes are so important, it is probably best to pick a day each week when you carry out your water change. I suppose it’s a bit like having a regular appointment,at least it’s not going to get forgotten if you know exactly when you’re doing it.

Remember that Oscars are large messy fish, they produce a lot of waste. You must be prepared to carry out extra tank maintenance if necessary. Oscars are not the sort of fish that tolerate very poor water conditions. They are very susceptible to various kinds of disease so keep your water quality in good condition and you shouldn’t have anything to worry about

Feeding Oscars is very straightforward. People do tend to worry about how much their Oscar should be fed and how often. One of the most important things to remember is it’s best to under feed, rather than give your fish far too much food. Overfeeding fish can result in poor water quality. Fish can also become obese if they eat too much food so give them enough food, but not too much. If I’m feeling my fish on pellet, I intermittently drop food in for a couple of minutes and then stop. You’ll be amazed that Oscars get through quite a few pellets in the time. However, they don’t eat too much. If you have baby Oscars up to around 5 inches, you could feed them three times a day. Between five and 7 inches, I would feed twice a day. By the time most Oscars reach 8 inches, they are either/or approaching one year old and will do well with one feed a day.

Remember that Oscars should be fed on a varied diet. Whereas I feed my pellets as their main diet, I supplement this with such foods as lance fish, shrimp/krill, cockles and mealworms/beetles. With this type of food, I will give them a fixed amount with let’s say a couple of lance fish and maybe four or five cockles each. A lot of the time, I will tip all the food into the tank together and then it’s everyone for themselves. If of the Oscars only gets one fish then that’s tough, he’ll have to fight harder next time. Sometimes I think it’s a good idea to make them work for their food rather than just handing it to them on a plate, after all, in the wilds, they would have to work very hard for food. Oscars would probably be opportunists and take food when it came their way, so why not do the same in captivity? I only do this occasionally, I do like to make sure that my fish get enough food.

So remember, under feed rather than overfeed. Oscars haven’t gained the nickname “River dog” for nothing, these guys are professional beggars and pull at many people’s heartstrings until they get what they want, most of the time this is food. If you feed them at the same time every day, they will get used to this and it’s fun to see them getting excited as dinnertime approaches. Who said fish have a five second memory?

I get a fair few e-mails every week from people all over the world. 99% of the e-mails are health-related and I do my best to help. However, it does seem that there are still far too many people keeping fish in tanks that are just not big enough for an Oscar. Because the majority of people around the world keep small community fish, most aquatic centres don’t sell very large tanks, they normally have tanks up to around 100 gallons, normally a lot smaller than that. So people who are getting into Oscars either buy a tank that the shop has already, or they migrate from community fish to Oscars but don’t upgrade their existing tank. Obviously we try to educate people on Oscarfishlover that Oscarfish require large aquariums. However, not everyone is going to come across our website so many people have already purchased their Oscars by the time they come across this website.

Let’s hope that people thinking about getting Oscars come across this blog before they have bought a fish. So, exactly how big does a tank need to be if you want to keep one Oscar? This is quite a contentious issue on many forums and lots of people have our own opinion on how big the tank should be. 55 gallons is probably the most common size you will see floating around the forums. However, remember that 55 UK gallons is bigger than 55 US gallons or stop 55 US gallons is a little over 45 UK gallons, which in my opinion is too small for one Oscar. Even 55 UK gallons isn’t quite big enough in my opinion. If that’s all you can manage then with proper tank maintenance and good filtration, you probably could keep one Oscar. When I first bought Oscars, I put them in a 75 gallon tank. By the time they were 8 inches, it was obvious the tank wasn’t going to be big enough so I moved them into a 125 gallon tank. Obviously the big you can go, the better but a 75 gallons tank is just right for one Oscar and a couple of smaller tankmates. Stick a really good filtration system on there and you should be laughing. There are lots of companies around that manufacture different size aquariums. Juwel are a very popular manufacturer of complete set-ups, by this I mean the tank, filtration, heating and lighting. It just so happens that my first big aquarium was a Juwel Trigon 350 (77 gallons). There are numerous shapes and sizes of tanks in the Juwel range, the smallest less than 20 gallons, the biggest up to around 100 gallons. The biggest problem with purchasing one of these tanks for Oscars is a filtration isn’t really suitable for large and messy fish. The size of the tank is perfectly okay, the filtration is really only meant for community fish. I can say this with confidence because I remember that only after one week, the spongers looked like they had been sitting in a cesspit. So if you are going to set yourself up an Oscar tank, I would strongly advise you to buy everything separate and steer well clear of the complete and ready to go aquarium setups because you will only find yourself upgrading from the internal filter out and going for a much larger version in no time at all.

Now I’m not going to go through all the different types of filters on the market because there are loads and they all cost different amounts of money. What I will say is you get what you pay for. Okay a cheap filter might seem the way to go, just remember it will be running 24/7. My philosophy is to spend a little more at the beginning and get yourself a good quality filter and you shouldn’t have anything to worry about for quite a few years.

So remember, Oscars are large messy cichlids, they are more than capable of reaching lengths in excess of 12 inches (30 cm). You cannot keep fish like this in small amounts of water with an appropriate filtration system. One of the main reasons why I get so many health-related questions is because people are doing just this. Oscars are quite vulnerable to various diseases which are directly related to poor water conditions. If you want to keep your Oscar healthy for up to 15 years then give it a suitable home to live in. Big big big, not small small small.

we all know that doing water changes is a real chore, especially if you have got a large tank. By far the easiest way of refilling a large tank is by using a hosepipe connected straight to your tap. However, this isn’t always as straightforward as it sounds. Getting the temperature of the water correct can be rather difficult and it doesn’t help if you haven’t got a particularly good boiler. One minute you may be putting in water that is the correct temperature, the next minute, it’s flowing freezing cold.

My first tip on this blog could save you a lot of hassle. It actually simplicity in itself. Make sure you are using one of those see-through plastic gravel vac that fits on the end of your hosepipe, or python. Then what you need is a good quality digital thermometer, the type that sticks on the outside of the tank and has a long wire with a sensor on the end. all you do is with the help of and an elastic band, secure the wire on the gravel vac and make sure the sensor is sitting inside the gravel vac. when the water comes through the pipe, it will run over the sensor and you’ll get a very accurate reading of the temperature of the water. it will probably take you a few adjustments to get the temperature correct but that won’t make any difference to the temperature in the water.

This is a good way if the temperature of your water fluctuates. If it doesn’t, you can test the water coming out of the tap and then put the hosepipe on.