oscar with popeye

my 6 inch tiger oscar has had popeye now for about a week. He has not eaten since it started. i have been dosing him with Epsom salt since it started. i used maracyn for three days and maracyn 2 for 4 days now but it does not seem to be getting any better. im running a fluval 204 and 304 on a fifty five gallon tank my perimters are all in the nomal range.

 

You should do a 50% water change or what ever the manufacturer of Maracyn suggests after treatment. Give everything a good cleaning including your gravel. Hope this works. Google popeye to see if there are any other treatment suggestions. Good Luck.

 

A six inch oscar in a 55 gallon tank creates massive amount of wastes. Lower your nitrates as far down as possible, do water changes more often and larger volumes. You most likely have surpassed the carrying capacity of your system with this fish.

 

it really sucks i have a new 180 that is still cycling

 

I treated popeye on my yellow tailed damsel by adding a few drops of melafix to the food and it cleared up in about 2 days. However, the fish needs to be eating for this to work.

 

Ok, because Epixstar is goofy and thinks that people are supposed to be able to read his mind, here is what we know about the situation

Temperature: 76
Tested the water himself and took water into LFS for testing, both came out as perfect params.

Tank size? 50

Reef, fish only or, freshwater? Fresh

Current inhabitants? What and how many? 1 Oscar (Bigger than 6", actually about 8") and 1 Plecostomus (About 6")
Clean up crew? Pleco

How long has your tank been set-up? Will be one year in Feb.

Substrate.
Type? Gravel
Depth? 3"

Filtration. 1 Fluval 205 and 1 Fluval 305
Maintenance schedule for filtration? Once a month total cleansing

Lighting. Fluorescent


Feeding
What? Hikari Cichlid Gold Pellets and live feeder rosies
How much? only two or three feeders at a time or about 10-15 pellets
How often? once a day.

Water change schedule.
How much? 10 gal or more if needed
How often? every other week
Water source? Tap and r/o

We do currently have a 180 gal for the oscar but it is still cycling. (we know that the 50 is too small for him at his size, he was a baby when put in) This all started when Epixstar threw in several media bags from the 180's filters into the 50 along with about 20 rosies because his feeder tank crashed. We thought it was just a huge bioload at once and possibly crashed the 50's system.
We have done a 50% change and have done several small water changes as well.
Oscar hasn't eaten in over one week and had popeye in both eyes, but one went back to normal. He also developed a slimy film over his body and had fungus on his tail. All of this showed up suddenly the day after all of the media and feeders were put in.
We have treated with Epsom salts, Maricyn (1 and 2) and Melafix.

 

You are doing all of the right things, maybe everything will clear up shortly. Keep up the extra aggressive maintenance.