pH was 7.8 (I've fixed it now)
Ammonia almost 0
Nitrates and nitrites within normal limits

My tank is 60L. I know I will need a bigger tank soon but Ernie is 4
inches long so I figure he doesn't need a huge tank just yet. He has
lots of space to himself in there.

I have one of those foam sponge filters which the gunk gets sucked
into - one of those ones that you squeeze out the excess junk in the
fishes waste water, but don't wash with tap water because the good
bacteria will die.

I'm supposed to be inheriting a bigger tank from a friend pretty soon.
Hopefully not too much longer, although Ernie will not like the
transfer, I can tell already!

I think right now his water is fine and he just doesn't like me. I
can see him swimming around right now, but whenever I go out there he
acts all spooked!


rna -DONTEMAIL wrote in message ...
to get rid of ammonia do 25% water changes, and dont feed your oscar so
much while your doing this. this is going to get rid of some of the
ammonia and by not feeding so much which will stop your oscar from going
poo so much. this will build your biological bacterial.

its okay that you dont have a test kit, but its best to get one as soon
as possible. one that test for ammonia, nitrIte, and nitrAte, and ph.
your amm and nit should always be at 0 and your nitrates shouldnt idealy
get larger than 20-30.

the blanket trick does work. becuase it strips the algae of the light it
needs. so you will prolly need to do this whenever the algae starts to
build up. and the main reason there's algae is from exces light or
phosphates.

sorry if ima just going and going, but just get the test kits and post
the results. and i forget if you told us what size tank and what kind of
filters you have on the tank. hope this helps