My Poor oscar! HITH/???

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c4a4y

Candiru
MFK Member
Mar 5, 2009
169
1
48
Tumwater Wa
My Oscar has had small indents on his head ever since I got him a 2 years ago. But now they are starting to grow and his scales are becoming inflated!! He was in a 55 gallon and was doing fine and then I got a 150 and he did fine for the first 8 months... But now he is looking horrible.. The jack Dempsey tormented him so the Jack went and I put the Oscar in a med tank with the recommend dosage of Metro MS. This helped the the holes go back down to were they started. I put him back in the big tank and now he has raised scales and the holes are getting rapidly worse. I do an routine water change of 20% every week. The tank has a 40 gallon sump running at 1000gph and the parameters come out just at were they need to be. His diet is 4 market shrimp a week with Hikari gold in between the shrimp servings. The tank mates are a 12" pleco, 18"fire eel, and 3" fire mouth. I don't know if I need to improve my filtration and add more bio/mechanical... I've run out of Ideas and need your help..

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i dont know what to tell you man but you check your ph nt nr amonia and make sure they are all in a good range of neutaul
 
To be honest, I think HITH is the lease of your problems. I think your O has Dropsy. Usually when I read "scales and Inflated", first thing that comes to my mind is Dropsy.
 
Alright well my Oscar is back in a Med tank with Mardel mycern two... He will be treated for dropsy first and then hopefully I can take care of the HITH with filter improvements and diet changes. Might need to do another does of the Metro MS.
 
stay off market shrimp pellets only
 
How about a few more pics. While the third shot makes the O look bloated, I don't see any actual pineconing. It almost looks like each individual scale is curling a little. Does your O get plenty of crickets or other bugs high in keratin with which to grow scales from?
 
I'm going to keep him on mostly Hikari Cichlid Gold and my eel will get the market shrimp. I do not feed him any bugs lately and no the oscar is not bloated but the scales are doing some funny things. There is no Pine cone deal but the scales are raised..
 
Considering he's been living on hikari corn flakes, you definitely need to feed him something that isn't just fillers. I'd load him with crickets at least once a week. And switch to a food made of things fish eat.
 
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