I have a friend who I've had for over a year now I have him in a 30 gallon tank I am running a magnum 350 with biowheel, he has been treated for HITH 3 times now (my fault) and now I have been doing 1/3 water changes weekly for 3+ months now.
I thought he had HITH again so I treated with metronidazole again and I also finally hooked up my UV sterilizer with quiet one 1200, he started getting worse so my local fish store said I might have a voltage leak so I haven't used it for over a week now.
I came home and he was breathing heavily at the top of the tank so I read some stuff on this site, and my water temp has been 82 to 86 now for awhile so heat wasn't the problem. I went to my store with these pictures and they did not recognize my fishs' problem so here I am needing help.

oh your poor oscar! he looks very unhappy.. never seen any thing like it!! hope we can help and he gets better

Yeeouch! Your fish has a nasty case of HITH. What you need is lots of water changes! Also, if you have any carbon in your filter, remove that, and if you ever feed goldfish, stop.

This is a bad case of it, and it may be difficult for him to pull through. Hopefully, with pristine water conditions and some TLC he will.

As to whether a voltage leak leads to HITH, well, to be honest I think that's unlikely, however, I copied some info from world cichlids just in case:



Now, the main reason I don't think a voltage leak is the cause is because you mentioned your fish was in a 30 gallon tank. You'll a 55 or 75 gallon tank as minimum for one oscar. Not only is 30 gallons an extremely limited amount of swimming space, but in such a small volume of water toxins from uneaten fish food and poo contaminate the water and cause stress to the fish much more quickly that in a larger tank. Until you get a larger tank, I would suggest you do 20% water changes twice a week. This will help remove those 'toxins' which, are the main cause of HITH anyways.

Also, continue treating with metronidazole. But before you do any of that stuff, turn your water temp down! Eighty two-86 degrees is much to high for most aquarium fish. When the temperature gets higher the oxygen in the water becomes more dissolved and makes it harder for the fish to breathe causing stress.

Anyways, good luck mate! I hope your fish pulls through.
-Art

i agree with art. that is probably the worse case of hith that i have seen. the first thing you should do is water changes and plenty of them. i would go as far as a 30% change every 2 days until you get a larger tank for him. then reduce it to twice a week. other than that you should follow arts intruction and hope for the best.

necromancer4 wrote:


yes... the more the merrier, lol

I live in Santa Barbara, does anyone know someone who lives here that loves thier oscar and might have an extra tank for sale?
I also change 10 gals out a week so I can't imagine what toxins there are, last week I tested the water and nitrites were 0 and ammonia was 0 and nitrates were 10 ppm almost perfect.

OUCH!!!!!!!!
first time i see such a condition of fish. he/she had
suffered too much.....

i hope he/she will recover soon. post s pic again when
healed. the craters will remain even when healed.

Welcome to the site Wbauers, this is a great place to learn how to take care of your pet. I'm not trying to be mean but please remember these fish are like babies, they're totally dependent on us for everything. Not like a cat or dog that can go elsewhere to find what they need. I don't know enough yet to know if HITH causes pain but I'd have to guess that it does. Please do all you can for him and keep us posted on his progress. The mods here love to help and answer questions so please ask ask and ask again : ) I wish you and your pet luck.

personaly i reccomend you euthenase your fish with clove oil.....do him a favour please !!!!!!!!!!

how dose that kill the fish? do u just put the oil in the water?

heres a link

www.oscarfishlover.com/index.php/Euthana...using-Clove-Oil.html

thanks for the link necro .......