My beloved Oscar has a horrible case of HIH and I don't understand how she came down with it.

First off - I truly love my Oscar ! She is not just a fish to me, but a member of my family. That is why it is heartbreaking to see her suffer.

I'm not sure why or how she came down with HIH and so far all my fellow fish lovers are clueless as I am.

Here is what her environment is:
Nitrates = 0 ppm
Nitrites = 0 pmm
Ammonia = 0 ppm
I do a 25 to 50 % water change every week.

65 gallon tank
2 Bio Wheel 350 filters (75 gal each = 150 gallon filtering)

48 inch bubble wand for oxygenation

My Oscar is 12 inches long and the only other tank-mate is a 5 inch firemouth cichlid.

I only feed her Hikari Cichlid Bio-Gold pellets
Gut loaded crickets
frozen krill
frozen silver sliders
I don't over feed her
and NEVER USE FEEDERS !

She started the HIH 2 months ago and I treated her with Melfix, aquarium salt and lots of water changes. The HIH holes remained there but never got any bigger.

With in the past 2 weeks the holes became very large and are spreading.

I went to my LFS and they suggested I Euthanize her ! How Horrible !!!:angry:
So they then suggested I do a medication treatment with API General Cure I followed the directions very carefully removed carbon and everything.

That was one week ago and the holes are still getting bigger.
I've been adding melafix and salt with 25% water changed every other day.
I have NO CLUE why this is happening and I am hoping that you guys can help me PLEASE !!!

I don't want to put my Oscar to sleep !!! and do not want to see her suffer a slow death. Thanks for reading my post

sorry to hear about your oscar. the only advice i could give to you is what you seem to be doing already. no one really knows why or how hith starts but the general consensus is to help in curing it is clean water and a good diet.
the only thing is can see that could be wrong is your nitrate reading. it is virtually impossible to have a nitrate of zero. i would retest the nitrates and if you still get a 0 reading i would get another test kit and try again.

one other thing, do you generally use carbon in your filter? i have read that this could also be a contributing factor to hith but i do not beleive that this has been substanciated.

btw welcome to the site i wish it would have been under better circumstances

aside from what necromancer4 said, i may add the following:
1) is your oscar still eating well?
2) during water change, do you clean your filters?
3) if separately done, how do you clean your filtering system?
4) presently, during salt application, are you applying for the
whole tank size or for the replace water only? (there are times
people tend to apply salt for the tank size after water replacement,
not for the replace amount only resulting to salt burns due to over salt concentration)

if your fish still eat well, there is a big chance for survival.
just a piece of my thought. i believe others will chime in to help.

while waiting for other ideas, please continue the regular water change.
pristine water is the first defense in any fish ailments.

i cannot add to the outstanding advice you already received but i have also HEARED carbon filters are supposed to increase the risk of hith

Hi, i too think the fine dust given off by carbon irritates the fish gills this in turn leads to stress and HITH. if you do use carbon remove it or clean very well and use polishing pads in your filter to catch fine dust.

Has your water been in the current state all the time or has there been a drop in maintenance at any point. If so even though you have improved your water it can take a long time to repair HITH. This may not be your case but i mention it just to make sure. There is a good article on HITH at the home page, It mentions "Octozin" as a treatment. this is a good treatment for HITH and as your water conditions are fine but you still have the problem I would consider it. You will need enough for 2 treatments I think its 7 days apart and is available at fish stores or on ebay. £20 will treat 150g I think but check to make sure. melafix isn't of much use so I would stop using it.

lastly maybe something is stressing your fish? Stress and HITH I think is related but no one sure. when you do a water change are you sure chlorine dose not come into contact with the fish before treatment removes it? dose the temperature drop suddenly? kids tapping glass? loud music? fly spray in room?heavy metals in water? it could be many things or none at all but its worth thinking about. i would try "Octozin" and see from there how things go. a vet could offer help here to but at a much higher rate.

wow i dint know carbon could increase the chances of HITH. i use carbon in every filter i have accept the largest one. ive only delt with HITH once, and that was on an old oscar that was nearing his lifespan, so i thought it was nothing more then just old age. im gonna have to look into this.

please note i said i HEARED that it COULD and necro said that the claims had not been substanciated,and marcus said i THINK ...(hope you guys dont mind me quoting you)and if you do please accept my appologies....i just dont want to be responsible for any oscar keepers freaking about carbon because of this thread i myself use carbon but only periodicaly but that conversation belongs in a diferent section thanks hope this helps

I was going to quote something along them lines myself biggame, thanks for high lighting that. Its not confirmed but i think there is something there. It could be that certain fish have something wrong with them and dust irritates that or it could be nothing at all, no one has proved why or what brings on HITH but high nitrates is a factor as diet can be too. other things may be involved, maybe one day we will get an answer.

yes .hoped you wouldnt mind i do get a colour change in my water when using carbon but it could be toxicity in areas of the water that we cant measure with conventional testing kits as they dont cover a large enough spectrum of toxins or elements and somewhare in this spectrum is something we hobyist water sample analysts are not testing for and the fish are subsceptable to something there ?????????????????????????anyway no more specculation from me im going to investigate this with the local rivers fisheries and waterways environment dept as we have a lot of mineral and chemichal water sampling done whare i live because of the years of polution from coalmining in our rivers.. i remember them running black. but now theres a good healthy stock of trout. salmon ,sewen and mink ,otter and kingfisher back all in abundance, also since then they suffered a bad few years with leechate seeping in from a landfill site so im sure they can help me as i ran the campaign to get it all cleaned up and returned to what it is now so i know who to speak to in the labs as its only carbon we want to examine so its quite a small field anyway i will try to use my charm and persuadance and let you know if i manage to find anything ?????

looking forward for your findings. i am intrigues
too on this issue. although i use carbon only once
long time ago and make my small fish (not oscar) die.

Thank you Everyone for the quick responses and excellent advice to help my poor Oscar. It is good to know that there are friends out there that care.

In answer to your questions :

1) is your oscar still eating well? - yes, she eats like there is no tomorrow and begs for food when you walk by the tank
2) during water change, do you clean your filters? yes, every other change(2 weeks)
3) if separately done, how do you clean your filtering system? I rinse the filters off in the bucket of old tank water
4) presently, during salt application, are you applying for the
whole tank size or for the replace water only? I only put in enough salt to replace the water that was changed.

I noticed during my water change today that my Oscar started to shake her head as if she was having a nervous twitch. At the time all electrical equiptment was turned off. Is this a symptom of HIH ??

I also noticed that she has become more aggressive towards her tank mate and the water change hose. She charges at it and slams into it. She never did that before and always swam with the firemouth with no issues. And I have noticed that she is swimming towards the top of the tank more and is less active.

If it is the carbon filters in the Biowheels, what type of filter do you recommend ? I had a Rena canister filter but that did an awful job of keeping up with the messy eating Oscar. The Biowheels seem to keep up with the waste.

I also went to my LFS and purchased another Nitrate testing kit.
The results were under 1 ppm. The "fish specialist" there said I may need to get a Pleco to clean the left over food at the bottom. I don't think that is a good idea because of the waste they produce - what do you guys think ?

Thank you again for all your time and help !!!

base on the information given, you are doing perfectly good.
i forgot one area.... about your tap water. there are some
instances that make up water contain those elements harmful
to fish without knowing it.

another area to look into is the feeding manner: frequency,
quantity, and quality. if you feed the oscar, the quantity
should be good for 2 minute grabbing only. after 3 minutes,
all left over should be removed to lessen the bio-loads.

shivering and wiggling is normal characters of oscar including
charging to all decors. if you have substrate, it will bulldoze
them and re-arrange the whole tank decor. it will establish its
own territory.

just continue your regular water change and your oscar will
heal in no time. keep us posted.