water/eggs

Question
My Oscar have laid eggs I need to add water, should it be tap warm water or tap plain water? With stress zyme and stress coat. set-up 6months ph-not sure. freshwater  I don't want to destroy the eggs or put my oscars in shock by adding water right about now....I want babies...please help

Answer
Hi Mae;

Cool! Congratulations! I hope they all hatch, thrive and grow into beautiful fish.

Whatever water you add to the tank needs to be the same temperature as what is already in the tank. You can also gently make water changes doing the same thing when it is time to do that. Condition the new water and pour it gently into the tank. It will not hurt them if as long as it is conditioned, the same temperature and added slowly.

Water changes are very important in all tanks so don't be afraid to do them even now. Just gently siphon off 20% of the old water and slowly add conditioned water of the proper temperature. Do a change every week.

Vacuum the gravel evey 2 to 4 weeks too, just not right now. It may stress the parents. Wait until the babies are swimming freely and can get away from the vacuum device to the opposite end of the tank. Let the fish move to one end of the tank and then slowly let them merge to other to clean there. The parents may want to fight the vacuum tube but as long as the babies are out of the way it will be fine. Just move slowly so they don't hurt themselves.

Here are a few links to info on breeding oscars;

http://www.cichlidfish.com/oscars/oscars.htm
http://groups.msn.com/Breedingtropicalfish/oscars.msnw
http://www.solodvds.com/oscar-fish/oscar_fish.htm
http://www.geocities.com/cichlidiot_2000/breeding.html

At Your Service;
Chris Robbins