About three months ago my O developed HITH for no apparent reason other than stress from moving to a new tank.I always do water changes every week,and keep my water parameters as close to perfect as I can. The only thing I think may have caused his problem is the use of activated carbon in my filters.
I'm now removing all the carbon from my filters and he is healing up just fine.
One thing I've discovered is that the Holes start turning black just before they start to heal. I'm thankful that the holes My O has are small,less than 1/8"(3mm) in diameter and srinking.So I have to assume that the carbon was the culprit.
Thank you all on OFL for all the information concerning these wonderful fish.

Pleased to hear that your fish is recovering. Keep up the good work, you obviously doing something right

glad your observant enough with your fish that you caught it early! gj & gl

Yea, I always keep a close eye on my tank.

Smart move.
Good to hear you found what caused it.
Spead the word!lol

So glad to hear things are healing... Carbon, unless needed to remove meds, is EVIL!

wasnt active on website when problem was posted but very glad to hear yr oscar is recovering well. well done seein problem and gettin rid of it!

i agree with nikkisue, 90% of the time carbon in a fish tank is evil!!

carbon may take out bad chemicals but it also takes out trace elements the fish need in the water. Great job catching it early!

Nickisue wrote:


Absolutely Evil. Hello Nicki I'm still in the process of reoving all the carbon from my system. How can I remove the carbon in the penguin 350? Can I just stuff it full of scrubbing pads or will that obstruct the flow to much?
Heres a pic of Tigger.

Eric, you most certainly can put scrubbies in the penguin 350. I use 5 or so in each side of my HOB's... if you add too many it slows the flow way down... so add 4 or 5 andmake sure the water is still flowing really well...

I have carbon in my filters and have had no probs i did not know it was bad do think i should remove it as i always thougt it helped keep the water clean thanks peter

Thanks Nicki I'll do that. I checked my water parameters yesterday.

Amonia 0
Nitrite 0
Nitrate 5.0
PH 7.2

So I think my canister is starting to keep up with the load again after changing to scrubbing pads last week.