Hith Or An Oscar Bite ?

[NDferro]

I Had my Geo- Sur- in a tank with an oscar that nipped at him from time to time as oscars do and im pretty sure that he got him right on the nose it kinda looks like HITH but ive never seen HITH that was the same on both sides like a mirror image the marks are the same on both sides

heres a crude drawing since i no longer have a digital camera

this is as if you were looking head on at the fish

He eats normaly comes out of hideing and swims around doesnt act any different

Any ideas

 

[Sully]

heres a crude drawing ....

yes it is. why not google HITH or maybe Lateral Line Disease.

Now way to even give any type of answer given the info.

 

[NDferro]

i have and its looks a little like it and i have had fish with HITH before and they acted different

 

[Star_Rider]

it's difficult to say what it is.

HITH has been treated with parasite clear and some say it works.

but the best thing is to keep the water very clean.

I had an angel that had it..she was the only one if 4 angels in the tank .



I added parasite clear but I think what really made the difference was water changes..I did 20 % every other day..it dleared up and sheis spawning again.

 

[NDferro]

Yeah im keeping the tank very clean but the fish hasnt comeout in awhile where i can see it so no idea how its doing

 

[reptileguy2727]

unless it is a really bad case of HITH i never notice a difference in behavior. the cause is very debatable and i believe there are multiple forms of HITH and HLLE. some caused be parasite and others caused be water quality or some other factor. do you or have you ever fed live food to anyone in the tank? if so that is the best way to introduce parasites and disease, whcih may have been how it was introduced if you have a parasitic form.

 

[Star_Rider]

actually, I believe that HITH is Hexamita and commonly called Hole in the head disease. it is caused by flagellate protazoans that resides in the intestinal tract.

the recommednded treatment is metronidazole(metro)..
lateral line erosion is associated with the disease so sometimes it is known as Head lateral line erosion(HLLE).

The protazoan lives in the intestinal tract of most cichlids and it is believed that stress(poor water conditions or food source) allows the protazoan to increase it's number in the intestinal tract/gut and develop into the disease.

 

[reptileguy2727]

the hexamita form is usually associated with a discharge or stringy like substance in the holes themselves. i rarely see this. one of the requirements of pathogen identification is that you isolate the pathogen, place it into another specimen, and that specimen comes down with the same symptoms. obviously some species react differently to different pathogens, but the fact that there is HITH and HLLE (two different ailments) dictates possible other causes. not only this but there are many other species (FW and SW) that have HLLE, this also leads me to bleieve that it isnt all the same disease. i have seen multiple cases of HLLE on Synodontis spp. that did not show up on the cichlids in the same tank. i know there is a lot of info and debate over the causes and treatment for HITH and HLLE, but that in itself may also show that there are multiple causes. im not saying i know this to be fact, im simply saying maybe its not as cut and dry as we think.

 

[reptileguy2727]

and where did you get your info about it living in their intestinal tract? i havent heard that one before and would like to know more about it. i also doubt that if it is partly true that it is in ALL cichlids. otherwise as soon as any cichlid started to get stressed it would start to develop HITH, which isnt the case. so i dont see how that is completely true either.

 

[Star_Rider]

did a search on Hexamita. I also picked the brain of a friend of mine who is a DVM, he let me peruse thru some of his books on parasites etc.

had to deal with it recently in one of my angels..I did do quite a bit of research on the subject. the angle is fine now. the disease is very treatable and is actually quite common in cichlids.

btw, it is common for parasites to reside in animals. it just isn't a problem until the conditions permit the parasite to get the 'upper hand'. I beleive that hexamita may have a generation time around 24 hrs. stress is just one way for the parasite to gain the upperhand. this doesn't meaneverytime the fish gets stressed it will exhibit Sx(symptoms). part of that has to be the type of stress. in the case of my angel she was the only angel in a tank of 4 that had the problem..she was very stressed by spawning. the 3 others exhibited no Sx and probably carried the protazoan..`I did treat teh whole tank so hopefully I reduced the number of hexamita enough so that the angels can take care of it by being healthy.

it is also believed to be transmitted through the water from contaminated fecal matter. In the flagellated stage it makes it's way in to the upper intestinal tract.
which is why it is easy for this to infect other fish. but if the fish are healthy they may not exhibit any Sx or problems.

I don't believe I said in all cichlids . probably better to have said 'many' rather than most but it is common in cichlids especially angels and discus but it can commonly infect oscars and as observed, african cichlids as well.

there is some interesting reading about this I found the one from the University of Florida pretty enlightening.http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/VM053