Oscar sometimes swims upside down?

[Carefree_Dude]

A few weeks ago i bought an oscar. It's doing well so far, and eating fine. It sometimes does this slightly strange thing though. IT will swim the full length of the aquarium, then swim upwards, and swim back the opposite direction upside down. he will eventually flip back over.


Is this a normal oscar behavior? or is there possibly something wrong with my fish?

 

[Dadywarbucks]

its fine there just lassey sometimes but if its stops eating it has a swim blader problem but most likly its fine

 

[Sarah88]

umm with any cichlid it is never good when they are actually upside down, this sounds like a swim bladder issue to me, how often does it do this?

 

[Sidrock]

If this is persistent, it might be a swim-bladder problem as others mentioned.

Or It might be nothing at all ...I notice this in my Oscars when they are playing around with each other.. The less dominant one swims at an angle to expose the full width of his body to the alpha male. This angle sometimes means he is swimming horizontally and ends up swimming upside down at the end..

You mention is he eating well and otherwise doing fine... So there might not be any problem.

As an extra precaution, you might want to include some vegetable based food in his diet.. (I use Hikari Cichlid Excel.)

Good luck,

 

[Carefree_Dude]

he currently eats new life spectrum Thera A formula. He only does this every once in a while. He swims perfectly fine as well. he just sometimes decided to do it upside down.

 

[pbass510]

My oscar used to do that i thought he was dying but he just played with me haha he was pretty strange never got frightened even if i banged on the tank

 

[Bearbear]

De-shelled peas are a good addition to any diet. The fiber helps clean them out. My Oscars enjoy peas more than other veggies I have tried, but they eat almost anything.

 

[Bderick67]

Like to see a video of that.

 

[tableau]

My Jack dempsey have always done this, except the backward flip at the end.

 

[ROCKY-101]

dont think its a swim blader issue i have flowerhorns that do this all day long they swim the length of the tank then do like a back flip thing i got flowerhorns and jags that do this and i had them for 2 years so dont think its swim bladder