[ejb101]

as seen in the more crisp image, his fins are more round. in the bottom one, his fins are sharper and it’s hard to see but in the daylight, I can notice some ever-so-small black tips on his fins, and also a minor scratch on his eye. there isn't any sharp decor in this tank, just a cave as seen in the second image. (images were taken 2 days apart) I’m having to hold him up since he won’t move at all until I actually touch him but then as soon as I let go he just sinks to the bottom while barely moving his fins. I’m currently treating for ich with Ich-X, salt, and high temperatures (82-85°F) for about 5 days now and this behavior started 2 nights ago. He used to swim all around the tank up and down all the time but now this happened out of nowhere. There are no signs of ammonia, no nitrites, and about 15-20 nitrates. Any help is greatly appreciated!!

Tank details:
15g column (temporary/quarantine)
2 10g filters (no carbon just movement)

 

[Auballagh]

Oh my....
Warning! There are possibly more aquarium fish lost to medication over usage, than any other reason. To begin, why did you suspect Ich was afflicting your baby Oscar? In both of the pictures you put up, I see no evidence of the parasite anywhere on that fish.
Plus, Ich-X is a very strong medication that will have some seriously bad effects on your fish if you use Prime or other sulfur-based water conditioners to treat/dechlorinate your tap water. If this has happened, I would recommend that you follow the manufacturers instructions and immediately perform a 50 percent (plus) water change to dilute that medication out of your aquarium water. Plus, temporarily use activated charcoal/carbon to absorb/neutralize the Ich-X as quickly as possible.

 

[Oscar6]

Have to agree.. that fish is far too young to be absorbing meds and chemicals. Fresh clean water only. Fish is likely a Lutino Oscar, not Albino. As it grows it will change color tones, have dark spots and streaks in its fins. Hopefully it's ok, but needs to be out of that tiny tank asap. Stress from lack of space is a real issue for Oscars, even very small young fish

 

[ejb101]

Oh my....
Warning! There are possibly more aquarium fish lost to medication over usage, than any other reason. To begin, why did you suspect Ich was afflicting your baby Oscar? In both of the pictures you put up, I see no evidence of the parasite anywhere on that fish.
Plus, Ich-X is a very strong medication that will have some seriously bad effects on your fish if you use Prime or other sulfur-based water conditioners to treat/dechlorinate your tap water. If this has happened, I would recommend that you follow the manufacturers instructions and immediately perform a 50 percent (plus) water change to dilute that medication out of your aquarium water. Plus, temporarily use activated charcoal/carbon to absorb/neutralize the Ich-X as quickly as possible.

wow, thank you for that advice, i’ll take note. but unfortunately I was too late, he passed away i’ll explain briefly why I suspected ich, I adopted this baby oscar from my work and the sump he was in was infected with ich, multiple fish were showing ich symptoms. he was perfectly fine at first (besides the ich) when I first put him in the tank but shortly after he started behaving the way I described earlier. I sent some pictures to other people and they’re suspecting it was some sort of internal parasite that got into his stomach and starved him to death, they said they saw it from the second picture where the stomach appears to be inverted. i’m thinking this parasite had already invaded his system before I got him and started treatment for the ich. let me know what you think.

 

[Deeda]

So sorry for your loss @ejb101 .

 

[Auballagh]

Well....
First off, I'm sorry you lost that one. I hope you get another chance to get a baby Oscar of that type. If that one was a Lutino as described by @Oscar6 , those are pretty cool.
-
So, what have we learned?

• Do not treat for Ich - unless you see it visibly attacking your fish.
• Medications can be a mixed bag (of usually bad) tricks. Ich-X is a seriously powerful medication that may have proven to be too strong for that baby Oscar. As warned by the product manufacturer... if you use Seachem Prime to dechlorinate/dechloramine your tap water, Ich-X may (will totally) kill your fish! With Ich treatments, I've found it's safe and actually best to just use aquarium salt. Those medications won't kill the parasite when it's in the encysted stage on the bottom, so they will work almost exactly like salt does anyway to kill the free-swimming Ich parasites.
• Internal parasites and infections are treated, well, INTERNALLY. That's because fish don't drink water. So, just dosing the water to treat internal problems in your fish will be at the very least, worthless. And most likely, a big waste of possibly expensive medication. So in the future, if you need to treat for an internal parasite or infection? Place the required medication (antibiotics?) in their food, and then feed it to your fish.

-
I'm hoping that 15 gallon aquarium was just a temporary, small 'grow out' tank for that baby Oscar? Those really big, heavy bodied Cichlids aren't legitimately called 'Tank Busters' for nothing! So for long-term keeping, a single adult Oscar should be housed in a six-foot long aquarium.

 

[ejb101]

Well....
First off, I'm sorry you lost that one. I hope you get another chance to get a baby Oscar of that type. If that one was a Lutino as described by @Oscar6 , those are pretty cool.
-
So, what have we learned?

• Do not treat for Ich - unless you see it visibly attacking your fish.
• Medications can be a mixed bag (of usually bad) tricks. Ich-X is a seriously powerful medication that may have proven to be too strong for that baby Oscar. As warned by the product manufacturer... if you use Seachem Prime to dechlorinate/dechloramine your tap water, Ich-X may (will totally) kill your fish! With Ich treatments, I've found it's safe and actually best to just use aquarium salt. Those medications won't kill the parasite when it's in the encysted stage on the bottom, so they will work almost exactly like salt does anyway to kill the free-swimming Ich parasites.
• Internal parasites and infections are treated, well, INTERNALLY. That's because fish don't drink water. So, just dosing the water to treat internal problems in your fish will be at the very least, worthless. And most likely, a big waste of possibly expensive medication. So in the future, if you need to treat for an internal parasite or infection? Place the required medication (antibiotics?) in their food, and then feed it to your fish.

-
I'm hoping that 15 gallon aquarium was just a temporary, small 'grow out' tank for that baby Oscar? Those really big, heavy bodied Cichlids aren't legitimately called 'Tank Busters' for nothing! So for long-term keeping, a single adult Oscar should be housed in a six-foot long aquarium.

Thank you so much for all the advice @Auballagh ! I've got some things to say in return as well:

• I saw visible white spots on the pectoral fins and some white bumps on the skin (which could've been something else, not too sure) but the ich was clearly visible on the fins, or so I think 🤔
• I used Seachem Prime mostly but then I remembered it can negatively affect the oxygen levels so I did a decent (50%) water change and used API Stress Coat instead since I know that one isn't sulfur-based, but still the behavior didn't change (probably since it already did its damage) but I did try my best to aerate the water while adding some back into the tank (holding the hose up high to produce bubbles and force some oxygen in the water) and I also did treat with salt, 5.5ish TEAspoons to be exact and slowly dosed some in the aquarium with mixed tank water.
• Very well said about the internal parasites, I currently don't have any medicine for those (should definitely change that) at the moment, but I do have Seachem Focus to help bond the meds to their food for the future since I tried treating a Betta who has Popeye with Kanaplex in the food (didn't work, neither is any other treatment 😔 )
• Don't worry, I completely assure you that the 15-gallon column tank he was in was just a temporary, I'm buying a 75 this month whether I have another oscar by then or not

And Lastly, as @Oscar6 mentioned about the Lutino Oscar, I'm not too sure since it came from Petco and it was labeled "albino tiger oscar" but then again, they aren't exactly the best at identifying fish, and also our supplier is Sun Pet which should explain a lot about his sickness... lol