Please help someone!!! I am new at owning an oscar, and my fish "Chow Yun Fat" is not acting the same....

He has white stringy things hanging off the edges of his fins and around the circles of his eyes. This just happened within the past 2 days. Also, his tail "shudders" at times. He is still eating, but after reading about HITH I am getting scared because I don't know what to do for him.. also, can someone please tell me how often I should change his water and filter??? I really don't want him to die!!!
Thanks

hi and welcome to the site. glad you found us.


HITH is normally a wound or small white spot/s the is/are normall start in the
head or gill plate. with your description, it might be just a worms....
can you post a picture...it can help us more to give good and sound evaluation.

i just posted pics in my profile.. I hope you can see them.. He's kind of shy and he turns his back when i try to take pics

jmallory81 wrote:

the picture shows you did have some issue to clear up.

1) shattered fins - do you have other fish in the tank?
2) scrape - it looks like injury to me not HITH..

how big is the tank? filtration? tank mates? ammonia? nitrite? nitrate? pH?
need info on the above.

i suggest you use photobucket or Y Flickr as your host for picture

The side of the O looks like some injury due to sharp objects.
But i may be wrong.
Any sharp edged decoration or rocks in the tank?
Oh, and welcome to OFL.
Wish it were in better circumstances...
try to get us a better picture and the results of the watertests Paul asked, so we can try to find a solution for your Oscar.