HELP Firemouth HITH or something else?

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B

blurock

Fire Eel
MFK Member
Jan 27, 2008
1,019
2
68
Washington
Alright, so I got a bunch of random SA/CA cichlids off craigslist for free so I am not complaining in any way, they are all nice fish. But one of the 5 is a firemouth, and one of the prettiest little guys I have seen as I am not a huge fan yet, but this guy is changing my mind...
However, upon putting him in my quarantine tank, I noticed that he has huge holes in his head.

At first I thought it would be HITH, but it doesn't look like any other case of HITH that I have seen. The holes are clean, and just looks like he has several layers of skin missing. There's no ooze or anything and they are not white... they seem pretty clean cut around the edges as well.

Do Firemouth's get HITH very often/easily like oscars do, or is there something else this could? Or did he maybe just get in a fight with a sharp piece of driftwood?

There are several of these holes on his head... I'll get pics tomorrow morning hopefully, but any help/ideas or something to look up till then would be a huge help.
 
Yeah... it's 3am here and my fish room is several blocks away on our other property soooo I can't get pics for at least another few hours.

When I got the fish (two days ago?) It was in probably a 100g tank with a chocolate cichlid, jack dempsy, jewel, and GT. The chocolate is the biggest and its only about 4.5"-5", the firemouth is probably about 4" the jack is 5" the jewel is 3.5-4" and the GT is 4-5" I had them all in quarantine together as I only have one qt. tank but I don't remember exactly if the firemouth was like that when i got him or not... I didn't get a chance to look at them at the guys house, and didn't inspect them too closely when I got them home, as I wanted to give them time to settle in.

I have since pawned off the chocolate and the jack on a friend as fosters so my qt tank isn't so over stocked. And moved the smallest one (the jewel) in with my managuenese thats the close to the same size.
 
Alright, finally got pics. They don't seem to be getting worse. but not any better either.

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water changes and add aqua salt every time you do a water change.
 
Yep HITH my short body FM has it just like that mainly around the eye right now its not getting better or worse good food and good water quality and plenty of time is the cure
 
Great thanks...
This guy made me fall for firemouths so he'll get good care.
I did a 30% water change today, always a bit of salt in my tanks.
Should I up the heat a bit?
 
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