Hole in Head-Gars

thatdudeoverthere21

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Sep 9, 2013
133
1
0
Chicago, Illinois
I have two long nose gar. I've asked people what they think could be wrong with them and they all say it looks like hole in head disease which i really did not want to hear. I never knew gar could get it, but when i show them, they say it is.
Im pretty sure i know how they got it. The fault is mine feeding them goldfish. Not smart and i don't recommend. I am doing more water changes and taking more water with waste out. I've switched there diet to frozen silver-sides(fish), freeze dried shrimp and occasionally, like once a month, flat-head minnows (Live). Its been about 7ish months since I've been doing this. The shrimp is a new thing, only a month of that. There main diet is the silver-sides.
One, the smaller of the two, seems to be getting better. It isn't spreading and if im right its going away slowly. The larger of the two is getting worse unfortunately. I've been recommended metro+medicine and metro ms medicine wise. I was just wondering if you guys could help me out and recommend any other solutions, other medicines, or maybe you don't think it is hole in head. I appreciate it very much and thanks!
 

Polypterus

Fire Eel
MFK Member
Aug 17, 2005
2,839
8
68
49
Detroit
This is often caused by a combination of poor diet and poor water. It is easy to reverse in many cases with a proper varied diet and with large regular water changes. All things your doing so you should be fine. One thing that has been anecdotally noted to help in clearing this problem is to give your fish some veggies... There are a couple ways to do this but the best is to get the fish to take pelleted feeds and regularly give them Herbivore diet pellets or Algae wafers in rotation with your other feed items. A technique I also use is to insert herbivore pellets into the fish being fed or in some cases for smaller fish inject a solution made of water and spirulina algae into the body cavity of the feed. If your gar is well trained to prepared foods there is also a specially formulated gel diet supplement I have developed over the years that also works wonders in curing this as well as prevent it.
 

Polypterus

Fire Eel
MFK Member
Aug 17, 2005
2,839
8
68
49
Detroit
Thank you very much! Im glad i got a response finally. I will try the veggies and see how that goes.
Good luck and do document your findings here.. Even if the thread goes way back in the pile others will still find it.
 

MonsterMinis

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Apr 28, 2009
6,048
9
0
Wisconsin
I had this same issue with my 3 long nose gar when I moved them into my 75 from a 40B. like already put forth.. diet/water quality/ and imo stress play major factors in this. I "fixed" it by bumping up water changes, increasing feeding and moving them into a larger tank... I would also make a note here saying I moved them from a set-up that ran on carbon to a set-up w/out carbon. if your carbon is old it is best to also replace it and make sure your new carbon is thoroughly rinsed. I don't think carbon in and of itself is the issue.. but that it removes vital nutrients fish need. Vitasol for FW is also a great add to soak pellets/fillets in ect. or can be directly added to an set-up w/out carbon to bump up mineral content in your water.

Metro is for parasites. I'm sure i'm gonna get yelled at for yet again saying HLLE and HITH are 2 very distinct issues unrelated usually but can look very similar. ( Oscars are notorious for getting HITH that develops into HLLE or vise versa.. as a compromised immune system encourages both to set-in, and its commonly seen in Oscars fed excessive amounts of feeder fish (which can carry the parasite) which is not an ideal diet for them.) HLLE is a "condition" and HITH is a "parasite" HITH is very common in cichlids fed live feeder fish ect and you can see the parasites actually in the "holes" created by them.. where HLLE is distinctive for running along the lateral line and head region. it looks more like the animal had an eraser used to the lateral line ect... where HITH it generally seen along the top "pores" of the head ime particularly on the cheeks and across the forehead. On that note I feed lots of live feeders to our gar that are QTed and treated for parasites as a precautionary, this practice is common with most people who feed large expensive piscivores but not so common w/ those who inadequetly keep their fish ( Ie dumping straight from the lfs into their tanks, why imo there is such controversy in reguards to feeding live feeder fish. which for whatever reason you see a lot of Oscar owners doing, not to mention the difference in nutrition needs like compareing apples to bananas.)

HLLE usually gets a foothold in high nitrate water. One of the fastest recovery keys for me has been to maintain nitrates at or below 15ppm and ammonia/nitrites obviously nill.
 

screaminleeman

Jack Dempsey
MFK Member
Nov 27, 2009
1,445
10
38
Westminster, MD
I had this same issue with my 3 long nose gar when I moved them into my 75 from a 40B. like already put forth.. diet/water quality/ and imo stress play major factors in this. I "fixed" it by bumping up water changes, increasing feeding and moving them into a larger tank... I would also make a note here saying I moved them from a set-up that ran on carbon to a set-up w/out carbon. if your carbon is old it is best to also replace it and make sure your new carbon is thoroughly rinsed. I don't think carbon in and of itself is the issue.. but that it removes vital nutrients fish need. Vitasol for FW is also a great add to soak pellets/fillets in ect. or can be directly added to an set-up w/out carbon to bump up mineral content in your water.

Metro is for parasites. I'm sure i'm gonna get yelled at for yet again saying HLLE and HITH are 2 very distinct issues unrelated usually but can look very similar. ( Oscars are notorious for getting HITH that develops into HLLE or vise versa.. as a compromised immune system encourages both to set-in, and its commonly seen in Oscars fed excessive amounts of feeder fish (which can carry the parasite) which is not an ideal diet for them.) HLLE is a "condition" and HITH is a "parasite" HITH is very common in cichlids fed live feeder fish ect and you can see the parasites actually in the "holes" created by them.. where HLLE is distinctive for running along the lateral line and head region. it looks more like the animal had an eraser used to the lateral line ect... where HITH it generally seen along the top "pores" of the head ime particularly on the cheeks and across the forehead. On that note I feed lots of live feeders to our gar that are QTed and treated for parasites as a precautionary, this practice is common with most people who feed large expensive piscivores but not so common w/ those who inadequetly keep their fish ( Ie dumping straight from the lfs into their tanks, why imo there is such controversy in reguards to feeding live feeder fish. which for whatever reason you see a lot of Oscar owners doing, not to mention the difference in nutrition needs like compareing apples to bananas.)

HLLE usually gets a foothold in high nitrate water. One of the fastest recovery keys for me has been to maintain nitrates at or below 15ppm and ammonia/nitrites obviously nill.
Well, I come into the Gar/ Bowfin section to read up on interesting developments, and get a clear answer to what is affecting two of my three Oscars. I was astounded that I could get my Oscars HITH, as they have NEVER EVER (and I have raised them from babies) eaten live feeders.

Oscar show pellet & 7mm NLS Thera + A is their diet.

The town next to mine has a requirement from the MD Health Dept. requiring notification of high nitrate (0.15) in the water supply.

Smallwood is not quite as bad as Finksburg, but at ~ 0.10 it is virtually impossible to keep my nitrates below 0.15. I change 75% to 80% water changes every 5 to 6 days just to keep it at bay.

Man am I glad that my four Bowfins in there seem not to to be affected by nitrates ranging up to .30ish!
 

thatdudeoverthere21

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Sep 9, 2013
133
1
0
Chicago, Illinois
Wow, Thanks for the information!
Last night when feeding my gars, i realized they are not picky whats so ever. Like i said before they are eating brine shrimp, live flatheads, frozen silversides, and i just bought a 2lb. bag of massivore delights for my TSN and peacock bass. The peacock loves them, the TSN wont eat them sadly but the gars destroy them also which i didnt expect. But i dont know the nutrients in the massivore delights. Any help on what is in them? As in are they a type of veggie fish food or a meat/fish type of fish food. The bag doesnt say and/or its in japenese.
One gar is getting better! Thanksfully. I will keep doing more water changes, taking out atleast 60g.
And @monsterminis, im glad you mentioned the carbon and told me about that. I do have to replace my carbon soon.
Thanks again for the all the info!
 

MonsterMinis

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Apr 28, 2009
6,048
9
0
Wisconsin
Well, I come into the Gar/ Bowfin section to read up on interesting developments, and get a clear answer to what is affecting two of my three Oscars. I was astounded that I could get my Oscars HITH, as they have NEVER EVER (and I have raised them from babies) eaten live feeders.

Oscar show pellet & 7mm NLS Thera + A is their diet.

The town next to mine has a requirement from the MD Health Dept. requiring notification of high nitrate (0.15) in the water supply.

Smallwood is not quite as bad as Finksburg, but at ~ 0.10 it is virtually impossible to keep my nitrates below 0.15. I change 75% to 80% water changes every 5 to 6 days just to keep it at bay.

Man am I glad that my four Bowfins in there seem not to to be affected by nitrates ranging up to .30ish!
Usually w/ Oscars it is HITH... but after treating for parasites if it doesn't help ( and sometimes makes it worse as meds always mess w/ our systems) I've been told many times HLLE is ONLY a sw condition in fish... when meds didn't work and the same treatments you would see in sw work for fw... You start to wonder. ( also when I delt with this more 'n once in sw 10 some years ago not many people worried about nitrate levels so sw tanks w/ high nitrates where the norm... hence more HLLE ..) Some species seem almost totally unaffected.. our other gar where moved from the same tank into a bigger one... so we left the catfish in the 75 and the lngs where still questionable sized we wanted to grow them in the 75 abit more... we got lucky when we had to move them from the HLLE... but its just to show how much swip swapping and contact the fish had w/ eachother..... the "oddest" part was all 3 of our lngs where effected... so it was purely species effect, none of the other gar ever became "effected" 'nore the rays, catfish, spiney eels we had.
 

MonsterMinis

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Apr 28, 2009
6,048
9
0
Wisconsin
Wow, Thanks for the information!
Last night when feeding my gars, i realized they are not picky whats so ever. Like i said before they are eating brine shrimp, live flatheads, frozen silversides, and i just bought a 2lb. bag of massivore delights for my TSN and peacock bass. The peacock loves them, the TSN wont eat them sadly but the gars destroy them also which i didnt expect. But i dont know the nutrients in the massivore delights. Any help on what is in them? As in are they a type of veggie fish food or a meat/fish type of fish food. The bag doesnt say and/or its in japenese.
One gar is getting better! Thanksfully. I will keep doing more water changes, taking out atleast 60g.
And @monsterminis, im glad you mentioned the carbon and told me about that. I do have to replace my carbon soon.
Thanks again for the all the info!
Our TSN is a real punk too.. at 20"+ he still won't eat pellets. But the massivore is better imo then other pellets out there. might also try adding NLS pellets and simply adding as diverse a mix of foods as they will take ( I avoid pellets as much as I can w/ wheat/corn as much as possible, NLS is one of the better if not the best imo). Massivore is mainly for predatory fish but imo isn't better then live/frozen foods. also try cuts of other fish. salmon while oily and a pita to deal with and can be stinky is a great treat now and then. I feed it the night before I do a water change. Chicago iir has a nice fresh fish market... may be worth checking out as well for good deals on fresh foods for your fish. I often get enough salmon/seafood ect for our dinner and a lil' extra and trim it up nice and toss the fish the scraps while i'm cooking up the families portion.

Garlic also seems to help, just buy a chunk from the store mash it up and soak some pellets for a few minutes before feeding... a lot cheaper then buying the Garlic-X and whatever additives they are selling now.. and you know it's 100% garlic lol. 1/2 a clove to a handful of pellets should be plenty, mix abit of water into it if your worried its won't disperse well enough. Our bullet blender works awesome for this kinda stuff.. pop a small clove a splash of water... puree the crap outta it, unscrew the blade toss the pellets in and just let it soak giving it a stir or 2 to coat everything well.

If you want to go realll crazy.. for awhile I made my own food mix w/ knox gel... pureed fish, worms, pellets, garlic, veggies... and let it set on a pan... a quick search will show you a few threads of making your own foods as well. I just don't have the extra time to do this anymore and its best to have a dedicated blender ect for doing it as well lol. But my fish did go crazy for it.

with issues like this.. husbandry husbandry husbandry... the better your overall water conditions are, the better foods your feeding... the less likely such things happen.

I've noticed a huge decrease in issues over the past few years just by focusing on trying to constantly improve my water, food, and stress I put on my fish. instead of focusing on my tanks when fish get sick.. I always try and be ahead of it by asking "what can I do better?" probably why I love this hobby and my fish so much.. I'm always tinkering with how to improve things.
 
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