Oscar is lying on bottom, shaking tail rhthymically, for a few days now

"WiseGuy" wrote in message
news
Well I never heard a response from anyone... but whatever it was ...
it has passed.. her appetite has returned and so has her activity.
Spawning behavior ?

On Tue, 14 Oct 2003 05:43:15 -0400, WiseGuy
wrote:

My Red Oscar, about a year old now... my 3 year old named him/her
Booyah !... don't ask me why... who knows... anyways... for the past
few days she has been lying on the bottom of the 75 gallon tank only
occassionally going around for a swim. She appears healthy other than
this lack of activity. She is almost lying flat right now, and her
tail is moving about every 10 seconds in rhythmic pattern. Is she
looking for a spawning partner ?

The tank mates are :

2 plecos of about 7 inches each
1 Pacu of about 6 inches
Booyah who is about 6 inches also
1 crawfish that was born in the tank when I bought 10 about 5 months
ago... the rest either died or the pleco's got them.
and about 20 feeder fish right now.. it was a 50

I keep the tank fairly warm and at a ph 7.0. She isn't breathing fast
like a lack of air or anything... just looks like she is either tired
or very full from eating.

??? ideas ??
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Didn't see your original post. In any case I've never seen an Oscar do this,
glad to hear it is OK now. I did have a large oscar that would point its
head down toward the bottom of the tanks and bristle its fins and quiver.
Its color also got quite light when it did this. Usually happened in the
evening. Interesting behavior that I never figured out, only a pleco for a
tankmate and the oscar did not seem to be threatening the pleco.

Maybe your oscar is doing something similar to one I used to have.
Mine figured out how to "play dead" . He would lay still on his side on the
bottom and wait for small fish to come investigate the "corpse".
Then BAM!!! One less minnow/goldfish/whatever

snip
My Red Oscar, about a year old now... my 3 year old named him/her
Booyah !... don't ask me why... who knows... anyways... for the past
few days she has been lying on the bottom of the 75 gallon tank only
occassionally going around for a swim. She appears healthy other than
this lack of activity. She is almost lying flat right now, and her
tail is moving about every 10 seconds in rhythmic pattern.
snip

"KEITH JENNINGS" wrote in message . ..

Maybe your oscar is doing something similar to one I used to have.
Mine figured out how to "play dead" . He would lay still on his side on the
bottom and wait for small fish to come investigate the "corpse".
Then BAM!!! One less minnow/goldfish/whatever

I didn't see the original post either --

Oscars lying down on the aquarium floor is very, very common and
sometimes comical. It rarely indicates the presence of disease, but is
more usually associated with change. It can be caused by any number of
things: the addition of fish that are larger than him, the loss of a
fish that he had gotten used to, decorations in the aquarium being
moved, eating too much, furniture in the aquarium's room being
moved(!), etc. etc. By far the most common cause is when he is first
introduced into the aquarium, even as a juvi. You've all seen it --
for the first week or so, your new Oscar lies on the floor or hides
behind everything until he gets used to his new surroundings. If I had
a dime for every time I answered a "my new Oscar is lying on his side"
post over at alt.aquaria.oscars, i'd have -- maybe 30 cents now :-)

It can also be caused by changes in the environment itself. If there's
a sudden change in temperature or increase in ammonia/nitrite/nitrate,
this response occurs. That's why, when your Oscar lies down in the
gravel, the first thing you should do is get out the test kits and
double-check the temperature. If your water is fine and the temp is
spot-on, then think of any changes he's gone through recently.

Here's a web page to visit that basically repeats everything I've just
posted:

http://www.geocities.com/cichlidiot_2000/liedown.html

--Mark


Mark Stone tractorlegs at msn dot kom
OSCAR Lovers! http://www.geocities.com/cichlidiot_2000/oscar.html
The ".Edu" meens i are smart.