Posted by Louisa on February 18, 2003 at 21:54:26:
Hi!! My Oscar, Mr Tickles, died yesterday of unknown causes and I need to figure out what he died of. I rescued Mr Tickles from school where he was crammed with another 6 inch oscar in a 10G tank.(this is done by a biology teacher) he was getting the crap beat out of him by the other oscar and finally(after two years of pestering) she let me have him. He lived happily and uneventfully with me for a few years(in a 55g tank, which I was told was sufficient because he was treated so badly and stunted) and grew to 11 inches. Two months ago, he jumped out of his tank and was a little crispy when we found him, with some injuries, but i treated him with melafix and some antibiotics and he seemed fine(I treated him for two weeks, even though the injuries appeared to be gone by one week) I then added filter media from another tank(well established and very healthy) to avoid recycling. There was a small ammonia spike(3 days peaking at 2ppm) and then nothing. That was two months ago. Then, yesterday all of a sudden his light parts went very light and his dark parts went very dark and he hung vertically at the bottom of his tank for an hour or so, the went for about 30 minutes violently thrashing around and laying on his side on the bottom of the tank. then he hung vertical for another hour and then went behind his rock and died. During this time he didn't eat anything, even his favorite treats. I tested the water when this happened-everything was normal-ammonia=0ppm, nitrIte=0ppm and nitrAte=4ppm. I kept his tank pristine with weekly gravel vacuumings and water changes. he was anywhere from 8-12 years old. I'm sure it was nothing visible from the outside-the whole time he looked normal except for the drastic color changes. I think thats all the info required, but if any more is needed, i'll try to answer as best I can. If anyone has a clue what this could be, please let me know. thanks so much!!
Louisa and the zoo of 29
