Please Help! Hexamita and...?

[kwalters]

Hello all,
I'm new to posting on the forms and really need some help for my lutino oscar. He's had an eye problem you can see for around 2 to 3 months now and it keeps looking like it's about to go away then comes back. I think he might also have hole in the head disease. He's always had some trouble seeing the food because he's a lutino, but I generally spend some time dropping pellets directly in front of him (maybe an inconsistent diet is giving him problems?). For the past week or two he's had to try really hard to find my floating cichlid pellets, although he is still trying. He also started flaring out his gills yesterday and still is this morning. I occasionally give them feeder fish, which he can get sometimes if it's still in shock from being put in the tank. While I was reading about the white film on his eye yesterday I learned about hole in the head and it looks like he has it too. The holes are small and nearly perfectly symmetrical.

I keep the tank at 85 degrees with 0 ammonia, 0 nitrite, and <10 nitrate. I've had a little trouble with ph but i check it regularly and I haven't seen it fluctuate from 7.4 (the high range test shows 7.4 and the normal 7.6) in more than a month. I do weekly/semi-weekly water changes, this last one 80% because of whatever is going on with him. I had some plants in there until I got silver dollars last month and they ate them all.

He's in a 110 gallon tank with 5 silver dollars, a small royal pleco, and a Jack Dempsey/black convict (who is quite docile, they rarely fight, and the oscar is quite a bit larger now) so there's plenty of room.

The first photo is of him 3 weeks ago and the second just now. Does he have hole in the head as well as some bacterial infection? I just got a new 50 gallon that's empty and set-up that I can use for a hospital tank if I need to.

What should I do????




Thanks in advance for any help!
Cheers!

 

[Chaz88]

I would recommend you stop using feeder fish unless they have been properly quarantined and gut loaded before feeding. I would also recommend you add aquarium salt at the rate of one tablespoon per five gallons of tank water. It has worked better for me than any medication I ever tried. I have not used any kind of medication in years and use salt at that rate in all my freshwater tanks. When I do water changes I use prime to dechlorinate and add salt for the amount of water changed. If you are just topping off there is no need to add more salt just dechlorinate. I would also recommend you look at increasing surface agitation to increase oxygen exchange. If you think you must use medication it would much better to transfer the fish to a small tank for that. All I can think of now, sure others will have things to add.

 

[justarn]

is there anything in the tank or filter that could be leaching, for example plastic items not intended for aquariums or rocks that could contain heavy metals.. also make sure no-ones spraying polish all over the tank or air freshener... some people say some activated carbon can cause hole in the head? if you want to use meds maracyn 2 will treat hexamita if he has that. As above add salt, increase aireation, keep nitrates below 10 as you are... and remove any sharp objects he could be catching his eyes on.
use high quality pellets such as nls or hikari and remove any un eaten food..
one last thing i see you have sand, is it very deep?? and do you stir it up weekly? sand can hold poisonous pockets of gas that build up if not stirred on a regular basis..

well thats all i have, good luck with him, the hith is not bad and he should make a full recovery in a few months...

 

[kwalters]

Alright, I have him in a salt bath right now with 2 tbsp per gallon and gonna move him into a new aquarium with plenty of areation in a few minutes by himself. I have a royal pleco so it looks like I don't want salt in that tank.
I took a rock statue out of the tank, although I doubt it was the problem and I'll be better about stirring up my sand or maybe get some MTS.
Thanks for the information about feeder fish, I hadn't heard about that before. I'll make sure to be more careful, it looks like that's the most likely reason for these diseases.

Thanks for the help, I'll tell you how it goes.

 

[kwalters]

The thing on his eye is clearing up already and we'll see how the holes do, but he won't eat at all. I've tried feeding him his normal cichlid pellets and frozen bloodworms which he loves. Any ideas how to get him to eat? And how long can he go without eating?

 

[Chaz88]

If the fish was not underfed to start with it can go a couple weeks without much concern. I would not worry much, I never met an Oscar that missed enough meals to worry me and I have had them for 20 years or so. The moving and everything probably just has it stressed a bit.