Albino Heckelli Rescue?

[Tahn]

So I visited one of my LFS's today (aquascape) and I saw this beautiful 6 inch albino Heckelli, but he had severe injuries to his head and was barely swimming upright, I asked about him and they said he was in with piranhas and they bit his face, so they moved him to a tank with a big bichir and the bichir attacked his eye. Pretty rough for a nice geo.

I asked how much and they said 20 bucks since we weren't sure if he was going to make it, and I was certain he was going to die in a couple days if I left him there. I'm sure some of you know I only have a 55, with 2 longfin Oscars (8 inch and 5 inch), so it probably isn't very responsible to get him, but my Oscars aren't fully grown, and I thought I could potentially rehabilitate and rehome him before bio load becomes a problem (I do a lot of water changes).

After acclimation, I went to go build a rabbit cage (got a new pet rabbit ) and I came back to him floating upside down, I thought he was a goner but when I tried to scoop him up I saw he was still alive (barely). I did a 70% water change, double dosed prime and stress guard and added 1 tbsp of aquarium salt per 5 gallons of water and now he seems to be swimming slowly (I just hope my small Oscar leaves him alone, he's a bit feisty, my big Oscar I swear has fish autism or some ****, he's just super derpy and nice). Anyway here are pics of the poor fella, the wounds don't seem really bad in the pics, but the gashes are a lot deeper than it looks. Anyone know what's wrong with his eye in the last picture? I honestly don't think he'll make it by morning, but we'll see...

 

[Chicxulub]

Moved to Central and South American Cichlids

Chicks dig scars

 

[ryansmith83]

This actually appears to be pretty severe Hole-in-the-Head (HITH). It's common in South American cichlids that aren't given proper care. I would run a full course metronidazole treatment on the fish if it lives long enough, then do large, regular water changes on it from here on. If people did enough water changes to keep things clean, most SA fish wouldn't get HITH.

Sometimes when it's this advanced/deep, the pits do not fill in even after you've corrected the issues.

 

[Tahn]

This actually appears to be pretty severe Hole-in-the-Head (HITH). It's common in South American cichlids that aren't given proper care. I would run a full course metronidazole treatment on the fish if it lives long enough, then do large, regular water changes on it from here on. If people did enough water changes to keep things clean, most SA fish wouldn't get HITH.

Sometimes when it's this advanced/deep, the pits do not fill in even after you've corrected the issues.

You reckon they are lying about the piranha biting his face? Does HITH go so deep that you can see red flesh?

 

[ryansmith83]

Yes, HITH will open huge craters on the face and behind the eyes that are very deep. HITH is usually an eroding of the sensory pits and so it usually follows the symmetrical arrangement of the pits up the front of the face and along the lateral line, as seen here.