about oscars

Question
I had some cloudiness in my oscars eyes so I had my water tested and it was high on ammonia did a water change and added stress coat it's been 2 days and I haven't seen a change. Water is fine now. Does this just take awhile, I've also noticed the other oscar has a hole in his fin they eat fine and act fine. Do I just wait and keep doing weekly water changes. Another thing is what kind of vegetables can oscars eat? I believe my tank is at a break in period it's been running for about 3-4 weeks.

Answer
Hi Karie,
  The reason your one oscar has cloudy eyes is likely because the other oscar bit him in the eye.  The good news is that the eye will heal very quickly if it isn't bitten again.  The bad news is that you need to do something about these guys or the fighting will get worse.  Be sure you have lots of structure in the tank, e.g., rock, wood, plants, etc to divide up the space.

 You should be changing 25% of the water once a week, every week in your oscar tank to keep them healthy.  Otherwise, they are very prone to hole in the head disease.  

 Oscars don't generally eat vegetables. I would feed them cichlid pellets or cichlid sticks, e.g, TetraCichlid Sticks.
Avoid feeding them feeder goldfish.  Feeder goldfish are notorious carriers of all sorts of diseases and I can't tell you how many emails I get from people who kill their oscars by feeding them goldfish.

-- Ron
  rcoleman@cichlidresearch.com
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