Hole in the head...

[SmithRC]

Any first hand tips of treating?

One of my Geos has it, nothing too bad at the moment but having looked closer there are also small groups of tiny pin holes on the others too :-(

Never had it before, so don't have any first hand experience.
Internet says it's bad water quality, but I don't think it can be.
Although I can't give you any water readings.

Other causes mentioned were

- poor diet, they are fed a good verity of foods, but mainly dried foods.
- stray current (from faulty heaters etc) so will buzz my tank out in a bit.
- another mentioned was carbon, I actually took carbon OUT of my filters on the 16th sept and put purigen in. Any reason to suspect this change?

The tank in question is my 850L (225us gal) it's running 2x tetratec 1200s.
Water changes, approx 120l, 1-2 times a week.

 

[RobHarrison]

Ive had it on a Oscar, i was recomended Octozin by Waterlife there tablets that desolve in water for treating hole in the head, workd a treat for me but i would recomend that.

 

[FF MkII]

I have used those and eshas one too..... Sorry to say they never worked. No one knows the real cause of it I don't think

 

[Jackson]

One of my uaru started developing hith after they spawned. The fish became really ill looking and developed a deep hole. Then I thought my altifrons had it as well when I saw the small pin holes you mentioned. I found out those a sensory holes or something along those lines. So it was not hith on them.

I did a lot of reading and found a old thread on a site showing detailed pics of recovering uaru with hith.
The guy was doing 25% WC's a day and added more to their diet. I also read that adding vitamins like vitachem can really help. Some say it's a lack of vitamins as well.
I started using vitachem and Metronidazole as a soak for their food.
About six months later you can't even tell the fish had any holes.

I read these

http://www.worldcichlids.com/diseases/Adamhith.html
http://www.fishforums.net/index.php?/topic/330987-healing-the-uarus/page__st__20

 

[SmithRC]

Ok then.... I'd also read about the vitamin soaks too...

The small pin holes are in the same areas on each of the others so hopefully they are normal.

I'll up water changes (and water bill!), start feeding a more mixed diet, I'll up my filtration to cope with the extra bio load too. And see how it goes... I don't fancy treating an 850l tank, so will isolate them if meds are needed...

Watch this space.

 

[Mooo]

This disease is a bad one, I've fought with it myself, this is spose to work http://wormerplus.co.uk/retail_shop/index.php?productID=206
but I think you have to diagnose it before it breaks the skin surface. Hard thing to do..

bit of info on HITH
Hexamita is a genus of parasitic diplomonads.
It is related to Giardia.
H. columbae and H. meleagridis lives in the intestines of birds.
H. muris and H. pitheci lives in the intestines of mammals.
H. salmonis and H. truttae lives in the intestines of fish.
The genus also includes the species Hexamita inflata.[1]

http://www.fish-disease.net/diseases/hexamita.php

 

[Catfishrok]

I have lost a lot of $$ in Discus to this disease but I rarely get it anymore and the last case i was able to treat it successfully. The only meds i used were Metronidazole, aka Flagyl. I had to get a vet to prescribe this stuff.
The Main thing i think worked was incresing filtration , adding a nitrate reducer and doing water changes every day. Getting the nitrate to under 5 and keeping it there is key.
Good Luck

 

[Jacqueline]

These holes can be stress related. I see you have a loach in there. Clown loach are very active and paranoid swimmers, so are the G. Red Heads. I would separate these two fish and see how it goes.

If the fish don't show any signs of illness I wouldn't but any medication in the tank!

 

[Mooo]

This big female lf Blue Ram had HITH, she lasted 3 days ..this was my first fish with HITH.You will notice a tiny dot on her head on the left near her eye, and the light patch on the forehead..the dot is bigger in the second photo..I was devastated, Loved her, she was the bigest Blue Ram I had ever seen..

This is was the outcome..

I have never had it since, I found out it starts in the gut, and is hard to all but impossible to fix once it has erupted..The best thing is to be prepared,.I worm all my fish now with Discus wormer, Kusuri wormer plus... it really works, So the moral to my story, an once of prevention is better than no cure and a dead fish..:woohoo:
http://wormerplus.co.uk/retail_shop/index.php?categoryID=2
Hope this helps ..

 

[SmithRC]

A bit of an update for those that my be interested...

I haven't treated the problem, I also haven't altered the tanks stock at all (the clowns are still in there).

I've mixed up the foods fed in the tank so I'm feedin 4-5 different foods at a time rather than one type per feed. Still 90% of the time it's dry foods but they have had prawns a bit more often and the veg still goes in when I remember.

But... I have upped the filtration, The tank now has a Fluval fx5 on it in place of one of the tetratec 1200's. Water changes have remained as frequent as before due to the visible difference the filter has made.

And the news I'm building to is that the hole in the head is healing!

I'll add a picture in a bit, but it's nearly gone.

 

[scatz]

Excellent stuff Mr smith

 

[Joby]

Good to hear its healing :thumbup:

 

[SmithRC]

Failed to get a photo :-(

 

[Stan]

Great news! Congrats!

 

[RobHarrison]

Thats great news! Amazing that your getting those results without the aid of Meds, hope they heal up fully for you

 

[pepper28]

Pepper28
I had lost a lot of $$ on discus,veil tail angels(black,marble & koi),peppermints (lost the 4 females now have mainly males, LF albino BN which I had grown to 10+ cms some gravid females,the pet shop asked me to get some metronidazole from the vet,some fish survived,a few discus too.
lost a few fish a few weeks ago on my trip to nz but noticed the dying goldfish and platies/swordtails with a thread like growths,did not notice any on the L397 but they were already dead,did a water cx and added multi cure /salt,they seem to have settled in fingers crossed,I think its time ,I put all fish I buy henceforth into a quarintine tank,with multicure after a bath in formalin. to prevent importing disease.