HELP! I think my oscar has early stage of HITH

[Death03]

as you can see in the pictures above i think my oscar has early stage of HITH, I want to act fast but not rashly to harm him. he is 6.5" long.

Tank: 42x18x18 (costumized tank to fit in my room)
Ammonia - 0
Nitrite - 0
Nitrate - 20

I just changed 30% of the water

what can i treat him with? please help I don't want this to get worse.

 

[ascarbo27]

i think its genetic. if there is a fix id like to know as well

 

[Death03]

i think its genetic. if there is a fix id like to know as well

you mean every oscar will have HITH eventually?

 

[ascarbo27]

you mean every oscar will have HITH eventually?

i wouldnt go that far if it is genetic i hope those oscar dont reproduce

 

[Death03]

i wouldnt go that far if it is genetic i hope those oscar dont reproduce

oh i see. so maybe his parents or ancestors have hith before and their offspring would likely develop hith without any reason?

 

[ascarbo27]

oh i see. so maybe his parents or ancestors have hith before and their offspring would likely develop hith without any reason?

idk really haha i was just throwing out some imput so maybe someone will reply

 

[suprd71]

An Oscar who has previously had hith is more prone to a recurrence but I wouldnt think its genetic. Hith is caused from primarily poor water conditions and secondarily stress from aggression and crowding. The prevention and cure is clean water and lots of it, and a proper diet with vitamin fortification. Hith generally shows as pitting and decay around the nostrils and progresses up the forehead. To be honest your fish looks pretty good, the marks may be from bumping or rubbing on something. To keep this fish healthy in that size tank you should be doing 2x weekly water change of no less than 50% per change. 20ppm nitrate is not dangerous per say, but should have a large w/c at that level.

 

[ascarbo27]

there ya go

 

[duanes]

Oscars are very sensitive to water quality, and research in aquaculture has shown that 20 ppm nitrate is a stress threshold where diseases can become problematic.
If it were me, i would at least double my water change schedule and quantity, and filter media cleaning, to bring down nitrates to 10 ppm or less.
In nature Oscars are omnivores, so just in case your oscars diet is very high in protein, I would try to add more vegetation oriented foods.
Back in the 1960s when I first started keeping oscars, terrestrial animal foods such as chicken were erroneously recommended for fish, and my oscars always had HITH.
Once I realized these foods were very hard, and non digestible for fish, and the non-digestible fats quickly degraded water quality, HITH became a non issue for me.

 

[Death03]

An Oscar who has previously had hith is more prone to a recurrence but I wouldnt think its genetic. Hith is caused from primarily poor water conditions and secondarily stress from aggression and crowding. The prevention and cure is clean water and lots of it, and a proper diet with vitamin fortification. Hith generally shows as pitting and decay around the nostrils and progresses up the forehead. To be honest your fish looks pretty good, the marks may be from bumping or rubbing on something. To keep this fish healthy in that size tank you should be doing 2x weekly water change of no less than 50% per change. 20ppm nitrate is not dangerous per say, but should have a large w/c at that level.

yeah the water is good and I do 30% pwc twice or even 3x a week depends on my mood also he has a very good diet (cichlid gold, sinking carnivore, shrimp pellets, market shrimp and superworms as a treat I also feed peas once a week). I think he's doing pretty good too. I'm just paranoid when it comes to my fish's health Better to be early than to be late lol Oh should I change 50% of the water tomorrow? also is it best to keep my nitrate at 10ppm?

EDIT: maybe it's just a scratch or something?