Sick Oscar Fish

Question
I have a sick Oscar fish who is either upside down or floating on his side.  He freaks out and tries to swim and then just spazes out!  His eyes have a white coating and his skin is milky.  Any help you can offer would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you for your time!
Melanie


Answer
Hi Melanie;

That isn't much information for me to go on but I would first make sure the water chemistry is stable. Elevated waste toxins can easily cause these symptoms, but so can bacterial or parasitic infection. Test the tank water before buying any medicine. Adding medication for a fish that isn't infected but is having water chemistry problems can actually cause them to die. Take a sample of water to your local fish store for testing or buy your own kits to do them at home. Daily testing when there is a problem is very important. That's hard to do if you have to rely on the fish store. You will need to know the ammonia, nitrite, pH and nitrAte levels so get kits for those or one that has all of them.

The toxins Ammonia and Nitrite are the crucial ones to test for when we see illness in our fish and should always be "zero" in an established tank. Change 25% of your tank water if there is any detected level of those at all. Keep doing daily partial changes until they go down and stay down. Be sure to use a water conditioner every time. There are many reasons for an elevated toxin level; overcrowding, New Tank Syndrome, inadequate filtration, overfeeding, inadequate maintenance, etc. If you could give me more information about your tank and fish I can help you more, such as;

How big is the tank?
How long has it been set up?
What kind of filtration?
How big is the fish? How long have you had the sick one?
Are there other fish? What kind? How big are they?
How often do you make water changes?
How much water do you change at a time? (10%, 20%, 50%?)
How often do you vacuum the gravel?
How often do you clean the filter?
What is the tank water temperature?

Let me know and we can go from there...

At Your Service;
Chris Robbins