Gulper Catfish with HITH?

[ShanerBock888]

I have two gulper catfish that I got 3 weeks ago. I just saw what looks like hith next to the dorsal fin of the smaller one. He's acting normally, and just ate for the first time yesterday (20 days after getting here, not for a lack of trying, just took a while for him to accept dead food). These guys are in my living room so I spend a lot of time looking at them, and I'm pretty sure that it wasn't there yesterday, and if it was, it was a lot smaller. From what I've read hith doesn't move that quickly, but it looks like it to me, though I've never dealt with it so I've never seen it in person. Water parameters are good, Ammo - 0, Nitrite - 0, Nitrate - <10ppm, pH - 7.6. If it is hith, my guess is it was brought on by the stress of the new home, along with the bad nutrition from not eating for almost a month, and maybe some parasites it brought in.

I read a lot of conflicting info about treating it, so I figured I'd ask. Do you think it's even hith if it grew that quickly? Should I add parasite guard? For now I have the temp up and a little bit of salt added, but would appreciate any advice. This is the best pic I could get, since he spends all of his time in the back of the tank where it's dim, unless I turn the lights off

 

[kno4te]

Hard to say. But shouldn't be near the dorsal fin. It seems to be an odd location.

They need soft and slight acidic water if i remember right. Black water cat basically. That could be an issue.

Would watch it for now. These are scalelees cats and meds can be sensitive. If it gets worse then would reconsider or you can get better pics.

thebiggerthebetter see what his opinion is.

 

[ShanerBock888]

Hard to say. But shouldn't be near the dorsal fin. It seems to be an odd location.

They need soft and slight acidic water if i remember right. Black water cat basically. That could be an issue.

Would watch it for now. These are scalelees cats and meds can be sensitive. If it gets worse then would reconsider or you can get better pics.

thebiggerthebetter see what his opinion is.

Yeah I thought the same about the location, but I did some research and found a few places saying that saying that it can happen on the flanks of the fish too. Yes they do like soft acidic water, but before I got them I did tons of reading and found that most important thing is that the conditions are steady. I'll try to get better pics tomorrow

 

[thebiggerthebetter]

Yea, hard to say much based on this picture. My guess is it does look like a kind of erosion (the color and the roundness), including possibly the second spot behind the first.

What you found about the flanks is likely LLE - lateral line erosion that IIRC can be related to HITH, albeit HITH, I thought, was parasitic in nature while LLE is usually (at least in synodontis) a symptom of inadequate diet, not enough green / plant matter in the diet. In any case, both diseases can have a complex of causes.

Given what you said about the fish, it is sensible that it's been stressed and then hungry for a long time and its immune system weakened some. I'd hope with good diet and total lack of stress, the immune system will rebound and suppress whatever this is.

 

[ShanerBock888]

Yea, hard to say much based on this picture. My guess is it does look like a kind of erosion (the color and the roundness), including possibly the second spot behind the first.

What you found about the flanks is likely LLE - lateral line erosion that IIRC can be related to HITH, albeit HITH, I thought, was parasitic in nature while LLE is usually (at least in synodontis) a symptom of inadequate diet, not enough green / plant matter in the diet. In any case, both diseases can have a complex of causes.

Given what you said about the fish, it is sensible that it's been stressed and then hungry for a long time and its immune system weakened some. I'd hope with good diet and total lack of stress, the immune system will rebound and suppress whatever this is.

Yeah that seems to be the consensus on everything I read - there area lot of causes question marks. And you're right, there is a smaller spot next to the bigger more obvious one. Thanks for the help. I'm just going to keep the water pristine and hopefully now that he's eating it'll clear up

 

[ShanerBock888]

UPDATE: The spots are almost completely gone! I've been feeding them a varied diet, soaking their food in Seachem Nourish, as well as doing 25% water changes 5 days a week. For about a week I saw no change, but right when I was about to be discouraged they started fading and now they're almost gone. Thanks for the help!

 

[kno4te]

Glad to hear.