Worsening HITH

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nzafi

Goliath Tigerfish
MFK Member
Mar 14, 2008
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USA
I have had my rhom for 16 years and he has a very advanced case of HITH. He has probably had it for over a year and I have tried all the treatments suggested both directly in the water and soaked into food. At one point I thought it had stopped or was getting better but when I looked at him under bright light last night it looks like it has gotten much worse recently.

He continues to eat well, is extremely aggressive and has shown no signs of impact. However, I am worried because you see many pin prick holes on his head now and he as a small crater above his right eye.

Due to his age I am guessing there is not stopping it at this point, but do I need to consider euthanasia at some point? He is showing no behavorial impact so I dont think so, but I am just stressing considering how long I have had him.

He was living in 75g most of his life and was recently moved to 180g about 3 months ago. While the water parameters are good I was wondering if water hardness can worsen the condition. We moved into an area with extremely hard water and I am guessing higher PH than his nature habitat so I was thinking this might be the contributing factor to the worsening of this condition.

Thoughts?
 
treat with salt and clean water, my Oscar had it when I got him, I ran a course of waterlife octozin (contains metro). do 80 percent wc a week minimum every week, this is very important with a messy fish like a rohm, what are you feeding, frozen and live foods will escalate nitrate in your tank much more than a pellet.how big is he? i added the maximum suggested amount of aquarium salt and its clearing up, look at my thread titled big red Oscar rescue....
 
I will check out your thread. He is 10in and I have grown him from 3in over the last 16 years. He gets a mix of NLS pellets and frozen fish. He did not eat the pellets the last couple times but I can probably get him to take them.
 
I did a long acclimation for the guy and he has lived in all different types of water. After having for over 16 years I have had to move probably between 5 different places of different types of water conditions. From an ease perspective, I have never put any kind of water softener or other chemicals to change the water. This way I can do large WC without worries. I also keep nothing in the tank like driftwood that would impact the water.

I did read that article and another posts of his which is why I am thinking its the recent move that has accelerated the HITH.
 
You dont use declorinator?
 
I don't use pillow softeners, or something else to mess with water hardness, ph, etc. I don't have driftwood or anything else that would impact ph, hardness, etc.

When I do water changes I use prime (just changed to the powdered version) and dose for the tank size and I add water directly to the tank instead of letting sit somewhere first.
 
Try adding vitamin C to the tank water. Crush up a couple of 1000 mg tablets and add after weekly water change. If you find could one of those vitamin blocks they work ok too but it's the C you want.
 
Hey man, sorry to hear that this is still causing problems with your rhom. I recall you asking me about the NLS Hex formula, did you ever try that?
 
I tried it but not to the full dose. The pellets are so small it's also impossible it get him to eat it. By themselves he ignores them. When I stuff food they often fall out. I'll probably do the salt in tank with large water changes and then do a 3% Epsom salt solution on pellets again. Will see how that goes .
 
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