Oscar problem :(

[eah403]

I have 2 ocars. a red, about 1 yr old. and an albino, about 4 mos old. both in a 55 gal tank. we also have 2 mystery snails and 1 crawfish in the same tank.

the white oscar seems to have some open wounds, pink fleshy looking, around head and mid body. he was active but lately - past 2 days - he has been laying on bottom not moving, his tail occasionally twitches. he does not come up to eat

everyone else in the tank seems fine. the water levels are normal. we did a 40% water change about 2 weeks ago.

also, not sure if this is a seperate issue or related we have little white wormy bugs on the rocks and glass in the tank. they dont seem to swim just wiggle and hop around on the rocks. the bugs do not appear to be on the any fish


we do have live plants. these bugs i were told could possibly be baby snails but we have had them for a month or more and they do not appear to be getting larger. the bugs seem to hide in the rocks, not visible during the day, but throughout the evening and night there seems to be quite a few.


please help.

[eah403]

bugs.jpg

this is the best "bug" pic i could get

[eah403]

FISH1.jpgFISH2.jpg

[stormhawk]

If those "bugs" scoot around the tank like tiny pods, then you have seed shrimps. Judging from the pic, that is highly likely to be the case.

I don't know what disease your Oscar is suffering from but it could be protozoan in nature. Have you tried Melafix yet? It is supposedly able to cure such open wounds.

[eah403]

my local pet store said maybe my bigger oscar is attacking my little albino ocsar and to try melafix but i havent purchased any yet. should i isolate my albino in hopes of attempting to heal?
the bugs seem to be in a lot of rocks but dont really seem to be affecting the fish. if it is seed shrimp, how would we have gotten those and are they harmful to fish and what to do we do get rid of them ?


thanks so much!

[stormhawk]

If they are seed shrimps or otherwise referred to as Ostracods, you don't have much to worry. They feed on detritus in the tank and are basically scavengers. Sometimes they come as eggs or cysts on live plants etc, which is normal. As for your Oscar, you can opt to move it to a separate hospital tank, so that you can treat it better there, or place a divider in the current tank to separate the 2 Oscars from each other.