HILH contagious? (Blue Rams)

S

stormomi

AC Members
Jun 28, 2007
76
0
0
My female GBR had HILH for 3 weeks before she died. A week before she died, my male GBR had signs of ich. So I did salt treatment and raised the temperature. Female looked like was healing, male had no more ich so I stopped treatment after 10 days. It looked like the female was healing but then she died.

Then my male GBR started having signs of HILH too, and today he died when I got home from work.

Both ate aggressively, acted normal, chasing tetras around, beautiful colors, pretty much the bosses of the tank. Just dropped dead. No sign of harassment from pearl gouramis. The gouramis got chased by the rams.

I'm thinking of replacing them with a young angel. Is HILH contagious? I don't want my replacement getting HILH too.

29 Gal. current stock:
10 blood fin glass tetras (full grown 2inches, bright red tails, body now colored up nicely metallic, I had 15 but a few of them decided to explore the floor of my living room, found them dry and stiff behind the aquarium, hard to do headcount of them)
2 pearl gouramis (each about 2 and half inches, beautiful colors, looks like both male from red breast)
BN pleco (1-2 inches hides all the time)
3 amano shrimps ( half to an inch)
1 wood shrimp (2 and half inches, bright red)
Lots of MTS
temperature at 82F, lightly planted, 50% WC weekly+1-2 gallons of RO water.
 
Last edited:
What are your water parameters? Do you replenish the minerals from using RO? An angelfish is not a wise choice. They will eat your shrimps and harass your gouramis.
 
when you say HILH I think you mean HITH which stand for "hole in the head." I don't know where you would have gotten HILH from lol. I don't know for sure but I do not think hith is contagious. The only reason for hith is bad water quality, do you have bad water quality straight out of the faucet or something? Are you sure they had hole in the head? I've heard blue rams need great water quality. Maybe you should try more hardier fish. Don't go with a cichlid unless you're only keeping 1-2 in a tank that small.
 
Ok, sounds to me like for starters, this tank is a bit overstocked. Water params are going to make a huge difference not only in resolving your problem, but nitrates need to be below 40 in order to properly medicate, and needs to stay low to keep the tank/fish healthy beyond that.
Can you please post ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, and pH?

IF this is actually HITH, that is parasitic in nature, which means any living fish can be a host. Unfortunately, it doesn't run a life cycle like ich, so then medication has to be used on the food and in the tank to be sure its gone. The medication to use with the remaining fish is Hexamit. It's a metronidazole based medication. Coat the food and feed that for 10 days, and then follow tank treatment as directed on the package.
You would be wise to move all inverts to a quarantine tank during the treatment, and also to add an air stone to the tank being treated, as the med can deplete oxygen supply in the water. Remove carbon from the filter while treating.

As for replacing the rams, I would surely not put an angelfish into a 29 gallon tank. Angels need a minium of about 90 gallons, they get about 6 inches in diamter (not inlcuding fins), and are aggressive. Considering your stocking is so high now, it would be best to wait until you have a larger tank before adding anymore animals. The rule of thumb is 1 inch of adult fish per gallon... your tetras take you way over the limit just by themselves. Bloodfin tetras average 3 inches full grown, pearl gouramis average 5 inches, and bristlenose average 5 - 7. That's a lot of fish. At 2 inches your bloodfins are not full grown. If you nitrate level is high and has been for any amount of time (with that stock I would expect it to be) then their growth may have been stunted. Once water quality is good again and they have time, they should continue to grow to about 3 inches each.

As was mentioned already, HITH is caused by heavy nitrate levels over a period of time. It is common in some cichlids, like oscars and jack dempseys, even discus, but not in rams. For rams to have a problem with it I would expect to see 2 factors in play:1. hight nitrate for long period of time which causes it to manifest, and 2. poor water quality or extreme stress levels causing a weakening of the immune system. Rams are very sensitve fish, and if they are constantly chasing other fish, this is stressful. They chase the others because they are defending their territory. 1 pair of GBR's will take a whole 29 gallon tank for territory, and are not a good fish to crowd with anything. You may find that you need to do water changes more than once/wk until you can get a larger tank for these fish. 2 male pearl gouramis is oly temporary in that size of a tank. There is not enough surface area to keep 2 adult males peaceful. A 30 gallon tank would even serve them better due to the shape. It is longer, thus more surface area. For the fish you have right now, you will need about 55 gallons minimum. If you want to add other fish later, I would suggest a minimum of 75 - 90.

I'm sorry for your loss, but I hope now at least you understand what went wrong and how to avoid it in the future.
 
Sorry, I don't know what I was thinking yesterday, I do mean hole-in-the-head.

Months before when I was planning this tank with the GBR pair, I did ask these forums if I was overstocked, and the majority say it wasn't overstocked. Which is why I decided to have this stock. A friend is giving me a 125 gallon, perhaps I'll move some bloodfins and a gourami there once it's cycled.



Nitrates~10ppm
Nitrites&Ammonia -0
pH~6.5
Haven't checked for hardness in awhile. The reason I use 1-2 gallons of RO water before was to soften the water for the rams.

I don't overfeed, I watch them while I feed them. Unless someone's been feeding them extra while I wasn't home.

After my rams spawned in December, the female started to have a white spot above the eye and gradually got larger became a hole. Despite this, all my fish are growing. Male was 3 and half inches, female about 3 inches. Initially they were about an inch and half.

Thanks for all the help everyone. I guess I'm not going to replace them and just keep my current stock. Before I did purchase the bloodfins, I did research and their max is 2-3 inches. Which is why I assume they were fully grown. I'll try to do some PWC in the middle of the week as well.
 
Hi,

I have oscars and JD both of which are prone to HITH. My understanding is that parasite is one theory, but there are others.
One of the main theories is that there is an inadequate diet. That the fish are missing some nutrient. Also carbon may be a cause,actually causing inflamation. Another cause may be stress. And then of cause bacterial.
My Oscar which came to me with HITH has much improved with, improved diet and water parameters. I give my fish a variety of different foods which seems to have helped. There are people that add vitamins and even mix own foods, I haven't had to do that.
I do run carbon in my tank, but that does not seem to be a problem for this guy. Treating with a anti parasite, sometimes does and sometimes doesn't.
Non of my other fish have developed the problem.
Hope this helps some.

Amy
 
stormomi said:
Sorry, I don't know what I was thinking yesterday, I do mean hole-in-the-head.

Months before when I was planning this tank with the GBR pair, I did ask these forums if I was overstocked, and the majority say it wasn't overstocked. Which is why I decided to have this stock. A friend is giving me a 125 gallon, perhaps I'll move some bloodfins and a gourami there once it's cycled.



Nitrates~10ppm
Nitrites&Ammonia -0
pH~6.5
Haven't checked for hardness in awhile. The reason I use 1-2 gallons of RO water before was to soften the water for the rams.

I don't overfeed, I watch them while I feed them. Unless someone's been feeding them extra while I wasn't home.

After my rams spawned in December, the female started to have a white spot above the eye and gradually got larger became a hole. Despite this, all my fish are growing. Male was 3 and half inches, female about 3 inches. Initially they were about an inch and half.

Thanks for all the help everyone. I guess I'm not going to replace them and just keep my current stock. Before I did purchase the bloodfins, I did research and their max is 2-3 inches. Which is why I assume they were fully grown. I'll try to do some PWC in the middle of the week as well.
Click to expand...

I would not say you are overstocked and your params look fine. The exact cause of this disease has yet to be determined so HITH is believed to be caused by quite a lot of things, like amyjod mentioned above, usually a combonation of things. So I think we can rule out poor water quality and stress, unless there is any aggression that we are unaware of. Nutrient, mainly vitamins, defficiency is a big theory (as said above) and that might be what is causing this. What are you feeding?

Trying an anti-parasite medication might work but HITH isnt always parasite based. One theory is the flagellate parasite Hexamita. A common treatment for infection with Hexamita includes the addition of the antibiotic metronidazole, however, many fish have succumbed to HITH without being infected.

I would keep up with the water changes and vary the diet.
 
I've never seen a 7" Bristlenose.:eek3:
 
Mainly tetra color bits and 2-3 times a week I give them freeze dried blood worms.
What else can I give them?

I also have Hikari algae wafers for the BN, shrimp, and snails that I try to give one wafer before turning off the lights once or twice a week.
 
Hikari makes some great pellets both floating and sinking that have added vitamins. Just check the back of the package. some of them are expensive but well worth it. I use a variety daily in small amounts to be sure the oscar eats it.

Amy
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
AquariaCentral.com
Top Bottom