Im back with status update of my Oscar..I have maintained water changes every 2-3 days, I have used tank buddies parasite clear plus aquarium salt and Melafix to help treat HITH, with the pits on top of his head darkening which hoepfully means healing, I started to notice around the eyes HITH, around his mouth. It seams as one part heals, another part gets infected???????? Does this seem right?? My water has always been good, nitrate and nitrite level wise. I do not use carbon anymore. I mean I can only keep this up so much longer. Should I be doing water changes every other day??? If it gets to the point where I need to put him down, what is the best way to do this. Im saying down the road if it gets real bad. I have been doing everything I can to keep this in check,I mean can you treat this for years? My fish is very strong, eats like crazy, swims fine very active, just the HITH is the problem. Please let m eknow thoughts, ideas, future plan
Thanks guys

The medications you have been using will not do anything to heal hole in the head. Hole in the head disease is one of those ailments that can be extremely frustrating. Sometimes you do everything right but it's still either gets worse, or doesn't get better.

Have you cleaned your filters out all? Could you give us some water test results for ammonia, nitrite, nitrates and pH. It will be really helpful if we could know your exact readings. Also, when you do water changes, are you making sure that the water going in is of a similar temperature to the water already in the tank? The amount of water changes you are doing should keep your nitrate levels very low. You really want to be keeping them no higher than 10 ppm at the moment.

There are medications available that are known to help treat this disease but in some cases, they are only available by subscription.

The best advice we can normally give for healing hole in the head is to make sure that your water is always in good condition. You could try medication that is known to help this disease. That's about as much advice I can give you for the moment.

Thanks for your feedback, will PH play a major role?
GENERAL HARDNESS-30
CARBON HARDNESS-20
PH-6.5-6.8
NITRITE-0
NITRATE-0

These are my readings after a 25% water change about 4 hours ago

Normally, you don't have to worry about PH, Oscars are okay with PH ranging from 6.0 to 8.0. However, if you have high ammonia and a pH above 7.0 then the ammonia is more toxic to fish. However, your PH is quite low so if you did have high ammonia, it would be less toxic. Still very dangerous, but slightly less than if the pH was highly. Have you tested your PH from your tap? It's probably close to a neutral or maybe lower since your PH is low after a water change. Talking about ammonia, you haven't given me the results. Also, I'm a little suspicious about your nitrate. How big was your water change? What type of test kits have you got for nitrate?

I use API 5 in 1 test strips and my Nitrate and Nitrite are both at 0, or Nitrate would be under 20 ppm and the Nitrite is under 0.5
I did a 25% water and change cleaned my filter under cold water.

Personally, I prefer liquid tests. My test kits are manufactured by aquarium pharmaceuticals.

I think you don't have to be a little bit more specific when giving as water readings. This is where liquid tests coming to their own, the water changes to a certain colour and you compare it to a chart, you can't really go wrong.

Okay, when you say you washed your filters under cold water, is that tap water? And did you wash all the media that was inside the filter? If you did, unfortunately you have committed one of the cardinal sins of fish keeping, you never under any circumstances wash your media are under tap water. In most countries, tap water contains chlorine. Chlorine removes nasties from the water. Chlorine could also destroy your biological filter because it contains bacteria. The mechanical media isn't so critical, it's a biological media that is very important, this is what keeps your tank clear of dangerous toxins, without it, your fish would be swimming around in a toxic soup.

Okay, if you can get back to me and tell me what you've been doing, that might help

I do not use carbon anymore saying that its possible it could lead to HITH,
I rinse the white filter under tap water, and once a month I clean the outside filter, meaning the moving parts and tube, it gets pretty gunky in there with sludge buildup. I will look into buying the liquid test kits if you think there better then the strip test kits. Your thoughts?
Thanks

MozzMann wrote:



please purchase a liquid test kit and test your parameters again as the strips are VERY UNRELIABLE and conflict to huge degrees with liquid kits

Okay, I think the white pants are possibly the mechanical filtration. However, please tell us what type of filter you've got?

I have an outside filter with a white filter cartridge thats I clean once the water start to slow down and gets clogged

I assume you mean a canister filter? Anyway, cleaning the filter is obviously necessary. Just be very careful with your biological media. Like I said, don't wash it under tap water, don't let it dry out, & don't turn your filters off for too long. The bacteria are your best friend and you need to look after them carefully

MozzMann wrote:
there is some concern in this area. as OFL had said, you should not wash the media directly on tap. what we usually do is get a bucket of water from the tank to wash the media. not necessarily clean white but to loosen the clogged things only while retaining the good bacteria. cleaning must be done as fast as you can so that bacteria will not be deprived the oxygen they needed to survive.