Hole in Head Oscar?

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CichlidKid

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Jan 31, 2006
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Connecticut
Hey guys,
I have my oscar in a 55 he's only 5 inches so there seems to be plenty of room for now, plus I have my water turning over more than ten times an hour through my acquaclear filter.
Problem is i noticed holes which I thought to be hole in head. So I started doing water changes more often and I took out half the gravel I had in there ( I had almost four inches of gravel) so I figured that it was the amount of gravel hurting the water quality. Since then however there hasn't been that great of improvement. The fish is swimming around fine, and eating greedily like oscars do, but the holes are still there.
Is it possible that these are just part of his body and not hole in head, or if it is the later, should I just take the rest of my gravel out and leave the bottom empty as I see many people have for their tanks. My amonia levels are fine, don't really know about nitrates though, ph is good.
 
can you post a pic...that will help determine what it is. oscars do have sensory pits on their head that are very normal and can be mistaken for HITH. first thing I'd do if I were you would be to buy a nitrate test kit and see what the nitrate level is. :)
 
If the holes matches on both sides of the face,then its sensory pits if not it could be HITH.
Oscars can easily get HITH from Stress, water quality, diet, etc...
I have a 8" tiger that has minor HITH and he eats good quality pellets, shrimp, etc.. and I do 75%-80% waterchanged once a week.
 
Oscars are extremely suceptible to HITH. Thankfully, the disease really seems to do no harm to them. I would compare it to warts on a human, unsightly but, not harmful. If your water changes are regular, and you ph nitrates, nitrites are also, try expanding his diet. Getting more of a variety in his diet may help clear it up. Good luck, keep us posted. :thumbsup:
 
xEchOx said:
Oscars are extremely suceptible to HITH. Thankfully, the disease really seems to do no harm to them. I would compare it to warts on a human, unsightly but, not harmful. If your water changes are regular, and you ph nitrates, nitrites are also, try expanding his diet. Getting more of a variety in his diet may help clear it up. Good luck, keep us posted. :thumbsup:
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I would have to disagree, HITH is a disease and can kill the fish if not treated.
 
I took out the carbon, and have kept up the water changes, also have started changing up the diet more. Seems to have helped so far.
Thanks for you advice
 
Carbon has never been an issue for me. Get some high quality flake food. Aquadyne flakes work really well. I notice holes when my water has something wrong and when their diet is poor. Keep doing 25-50 % water changes every couple days, vacuuming the gravel each time, I can't say this enough, oscars are very messy fish.
 
For the two or three weeks change youre water evry three days 30 % soak his pellets in liquid centrume or vita chem is better higher in vit c no feeders feed a variety of foods i use hikari bio gold omega one bio blend and i feed them peas and as a treat crickets that i gut load with oranges or mandarines hith is tuff good luck
 
hemiboo said:
Carbon has never been an issue for me. Get some high quality flake food. Aquadyne flakes work really well. I notice holes when my water has something wrong and when their diet is poor. Keep doing 25-50 % water changes every couple days, vacuuming the gravel each time, I can't say this enough, oscars are very messy fish.
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I'd stick to a quality pellet food instead of flakes. flakes are much easier to get sucked up into the filter and will clog the filter a very quickly. once medium to large growing cichlids get past 1.5-2" I'd personally put them on a "mini" or "baby" cichlid pellet. Hikari, New Life Spectrum, Omega One, Marineland and most other brands sell pellets and/or cichlid crumbles small enough for small cichlids. :)


everything else I agree with. definitely keep up the water changes and gravel vacs and hopefully the oscar will start showing improvement. :)
 
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