Green Terror Hole in the Head disease ?

[greenterror101]

Hello,

Do you guys think my GT has a HiTH disease ? If so is quarantine / treatment required ? The rest of the fish (BP) tank are doing fine. GT is still eating well and being terrotorial as usual no unusual behavior.
Could it be a mere wound and it will self heal ?

I'm using Easy-Life Voogle everyday to boost immunity.

Water parameters are fine. Refreshing every 2 weeks with. 0% ammonia, 0% nitrite.

Thanks,

 

[Guyb93]

Hello,

Do you guys think my GT has a HiTH disease ? If so is quarantine / treatment required ? The rest of the fish (BP) tank are doing fine. GT is still eating well and being terrotorial as usual no unusual behavior.
Could it be a mere wound and it will self heal ?

I'm using Easy-Life Voogle everyday to boost immunity.

Water parameters are fine. Refreshing every 2 weeks with. 0% ammonia, 0% nitrite.

Thanks,

To me looks like a lost scale or scale damage but I’d still keep an eye on it

 

[Wills]

I agree looks like a wound rather than disease

 

[Colin_T]

I reckon it's the start of hole in the head disease because there are a couple more pits further along the face toward the mouth.

Leave the fish in the main tank, clean the tank conditions up and add some salt.

If there's no improvement after a week of water changes and salt, you might need metronidazole but try salt first because it usually fixes the problem if it's just started.

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Wipe the inside of the glass down with a clean fish sponge.

Do a 75% water change and gravel clean the substrate every day for 2 weeks. The water changes and gravel cleaning will reduce the number of disease organisms in the water and provide a cleaner environment for the fish to recover in.
Make sure any new water is free of chlorine/ chloramine before it is added to the tank.

Clean the filter if it hasn't been done in the last 2 weeks. However, if the filter is less than 6 weeks old, do not clean it. Wash the filter materials/ media in a bucket of tank water and re-use them. Tip the bucket of dirty water on the garden/ lawn. Cleaning the filter means less gunk and cleaner water with fewer pathogens.

Increase surface turbulence/ aeration to maximise the dissolved oxygen in the water.

Add some salt, (see directions below).

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You can add rock salt (often sold as aquarium salt), sea salt or swimming pool salt to the aquarium at the dose rate of 2 heaped tablespoon per 20 litres of water.

Keep the salt level like this for at least 2 weeks but no longer than 4 weeks otherwise kidney damage can occur. Kidney damage is more likely to occur in fish from soft water (tetras, Corydoras, angelfish, Bettas & gouramis, loaches) that are exposed to high levels of salt for an extended period of time, and is not an issue with livebearers, rainbowfish or other salt tolerant species.

The salt will not affect the beneficial filter bacteria, fish, plants, shrimp or snails.

After you use salt and the fish have recovered, you do a 10% water change each day for a week using only fresh water that has been dechlorinated. Then do a 20% water change each day for a week. Then you can do bigger water changes after that. This dilutes the salt out of the tank slowly so it doesn't harm the fish.

If you do water changes while using salt, you need to treat the new water with salt before adding it to the tank. This will keep the salt level stable in the tank and minimise stress on the fish.

 

[Wills]

I can see the ones you mean but I think they are just the fishes sensory pits rather than hole in the head.

 

[Colin_T]

There's 3 pits in a row between the eye and nose and the outer 2 don't look normal to me. At the very least, do what I suggested above for a week but don't add salt. See what happens. But I reckon it's the start of HITH.

 

[greenterror101]

Hi thanks for the replies

• The reason for the high nitrate is because of I dont have any plants.
• I've added a extra sachet of Seachem De-Nitrate and closely monitoring nitrate and it helped reducing the nitrate levels below 20 mg.
• Another reason for the high nitrate is the high fish stock for my 450 liter = 120g tank. I've 6 juvenile blood parrots + 1 adult blood parrot + 2 adult female geophagus + 2 bristlenose pleco's.
• But because of the high fish stock I've two big cannister filters; 2x eheim 4 600. Both Pumping @ 1250 liter (330g) per uur. A single one could handle up to 600L
• Also been feeding less (twice instead of 3 times a day now) only HQ defrosted cichlid live mix food. (lots of garlic in there)

• I've added easy life voogle (vitamins) everyday and her holes did not grow any bigger but are not healing either. Still no changes in behavior, happily swimming eating and pooping.
• My last water change was last week. I will do another 40% tommorow.
• I bought Esha Hexamita, specially made medicine for HiTH desease.

As for salt i've added a few more teaspoons of Seachem American Cichlid Salt since the day I discovered the HitH.

The questions now I have are:

1. Do I add medicine to the big tank ? Or keep a close eye on the wound everyday ?
2. Or.. move the GT now to a small quarantine tank and treat it there until the holes are gone (moving her will also cause stress)

 

[Wills]

I agree with Colin to make the tank as clean as possible really good advice up there. I dont think I'd start do any medications just yet as it is not severe and one of the best things for hole in the head is a clean tank.

I supose the only thing I wonder about is, I had a Thread Fin Acara who lived to 8 years old and he had really prominent sensory pits on his head and I was always paranoid about it but they never changed shape or quantity and in all honesty his tank slipped a bit on my part for a while (due to personal reasons) so would have expected it to develop. I think thats why I'm wondering if its worth doing what Colin has suggested and after that could just be that they have prominent pits rather than a disease.

Wills