puncture wound in G. Altifrons head?

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jworth

jworth

Jack Dempsey
MFK Member
Sep 9, 2008
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Indianapolis
They all seem to have a soft spot in thier head there (only the altifrons, that is) but this one has an actual puncture wound.

Before anyone asks
ammonia/nitrite 0
nitrates 5ppm

It is acting and eating normal and everyone in the tank is fine. Thought it looked odd. It looks really deep...

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2-5-10 (6).jpg
 
you cant see the depth in the picture. this is a really deep puncture. not like any HITH i've seen.

pH is a little high at 7.6, not sure of the hardness.
ammonia/nitrite 0
nitrates 5ppm

It appears all of the Altifrons have a natural 'soft spot' there. this one just looks as if it punctured it on something.
 
peathenster;3861308; said:
did it bump into something? pointy driftwood?
Click to expand...

there are only a couple of things it could have hit, but this seems much more logical to me than HITH because my water quality is now and has always been top notch. the red ceibals have wigglers again and are going bonkers and the male rotkeil is chasing the female all around and the sveni pike is trying to make sure everyone knows he is boss. its a little hectic right now haha. the fish in question is acting normal though. Could the higher pH than its natural habitat cause HITH? That would be the only other logic behind it.
 
My experience has been that fish with HITH act fine. My panda uaru ate like crazy and continued to grow at a ridiculously fast rate, but it didn't stop the pits from forming on their faces.

The thing with HITH is that it's usually more than just one large spot in the middle of the head like that. I guess it's possible but it seems unusual. Did it develop over time or just show up suddenly one day? Pits from HITH seem to start small and grow.

I know the soft spot you're talking about. I noticed this on my Heros severus 'Atabapo.' When she opens her mouth to suck in food, the soft part of the forehead between the eyes dents in. I'd never noticed that in any of my other fish before and it kind of freaked me out the first time she did it.
 
My Geo sp. Red head Tapajos have that same soft spot, although not a whole as your has. I don't know much about HITH, but it could be just that. Your PH is kinda high for Geo's too. I would check your hardness. When my water was reall hard, the soft spot seemed "softer". If that makes any sense. I used a softener pillow and it seemed to help a lot. I also had flagstone in my tank that seemed to be leaching something into my water that made it really hard. I pulled that out and it dropped more. Basically, in my ramblings, I say lower your ph and check your hardness. Both GH and KH. Do some water changes too. Good luck.
 
As long as your pH is stable I don't think it would cause any problems and I've never heard of any evidence that pH could cause HITH. I know nitrates are thought to be a cause but yours are well under control.

That also doesn't look like any HITH I've ever seen. It looks to me like it punctured it on something. I would just keep an eye on it for secondary infections and begin treatment if it stops acting normal.
 
If it's an actual wound I would think you would see scratches around it and some other everidence other then a pit. That looks exactly like HITH to me. It often starts in that exact spot and can become a large pit very quickly. Some fish will pit up around there eyes and other places but often you get one large pit in that exact spot.

Also, I firmly believe that blackwater species and other fish from the amazon that come from low PH's can get HITH in perfectly clean water. Several of the pikes are prime examples of this. They simply do not like hard high PH water and sores and HITH are a very common result.

Are these wild caught or tank bred? You need to figure out how hard you water is to because that could really be a limiting factor how you can lower your PH.
 
ill look into a hardness test kit while im out today. this was not gradual. it was not there yesterday morning and it was there last night. im not sure if its wild or not.... when i ordered it from Jeff, there was no collection point like it usually says. Description just read 'Brazilian" earth eater.
 
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