One theory for cause of HITH is from having stray current in the tank. You might want to try a grounding probe. They ground the tank from any stray electrical current that may be present (from heaters, filters, etc.). Even if you don't have this problem, for $10 or so it's worth knowing that you can rule this out.
Hole in the Head.....successful cures???
- Thread starter Gulp
- Start date
Is a grounding probe something I pick up at the LFS, or Home Depot? I am clueless about this. I will definitely try it though.
You may find it at the LFS. It is strictly for aquariums, so it's not like you'd find it in the hardware store. If you can't find one locally, look at bigalsonline.com or petwhse.com.
holes in the head is a common symptom of many things such as ammonia levels, to soft of water, stray currents (so I hear now), but most of the cases I have looked at were caused by a bacterial infection furan or furan 2 as I said kills both gram positive and gram negative bacteria I would give it a try at a lowered dose for a sustained amount of time (say half the dose for twice the time) like I said it worked for my discus. It also says in the article to add salt probably to kill bacteria and parisites. And as mentioned by daveedka clout is an anti bacterial anti fungal medication
I am going to get back into the habit of including salt in my water changes, but Gulp is a little too hard to handle at this point to move him into a smaller tank with a strong salt content. Just moving him to the 110 was an adventure.....and I had a pretty large net.
I will head to the LFS and try to find a grounding rod and some furan or furan 2 just to cover all the bases. The only problem I have is how the mass quantity of medication I will probably have to add to the 110 gallon. It will probably take a whole bottle for 1 days treatment.
Thanks for all the advice.
I will head to the LFS and try to find a grounding rod and some furan or furan 2 just to cover all the bases. The only problem I have is how the mass quantity of medication I will probably have to add to the 110 gallon. It will probably take a whole bottle for 1 days treatment.
Thanks for all the advice.When my life got too busy and I got lax on the water changes, my Oscars got a mild case of HITH. Vacuuming the gravel and changing the filter media were the most time-consuming so I just did the water changes if I didn't have time and that made the most difference. I change 70-80% of the water every two weeks and the HITH went away once I got back on that schedule.
I have no grounding probe and very soft water. No meds or vitamins. I feed only Hikari gold.
If you're using Aquarium Pharmaceuticals nitrate tests, they read very low. It starts to register around 180 ppm. I discovered this when I was dosing a planted tank with nitrate so I knew there was nitrate in there but the test wasn't picking it up. I then got a Hagen kit and both my planted tank and Oscar tank were off the scale. I was wondering why I could feed the Oscars so much and have so little nitrate.
I have no grounding probe and very soft water. No meds or vitamins. I feed only Hikari gold.
If you're using Aquarium Pharmaceuticals nitrate tests, they read very low. It starts to register around 180 ppm. I discovered this when I was dosing a planted tank with nitrate so I knew there was nitrate in there but the test wasn't picking it up. I then got a Hagen kit and both my planted tank and Oscar tank were off the scale. I was wondering why I could feed the Oscars so much and have so little nitrate.
Here's what i did when my oscar had HITH, i raised the temperature, add salt to the tank, fed him vitamined food, and the drastic thing was to take him out of the water, and put one drop of Mercuro-cromo (Don't know the word in english, but is like iodine), in each of the holes, injuries were healed in less than 10 days and has not presented any symptoms at all in 6 months.
Hope it helps
Hope it helps
How big was your oscar? For the life of me I can't figure out how I would get Gulp out of the water and keep him still enough to put on the medicine. When I moved him from his old tank to the new one........he was thrashing around like you wouldn't believe. Did you just let your oscar thrash until he ran out of stream? Just wondering if you have any tips before I try something like that. BTW, Gulp is a little over 9" now.
At the time he was between 11" and 12", right now he's 13".
here's a pic of him last week
yes, use a trout net and it will be less trouble
