Hole in head (Oscar)

[Bruce1975]

Hi, so I have two oscars and I started to notice some pits developing around their face and head. I did some research and I believe it is hole in head disease. It wasn’t an extreme case in either of them, it was very mild. I ended up buying API General Cure(which is Metronidazole and Praziquantel) and dosed the tank according to the instructions. After the first set of doses I noticed improvement in them, but after a couple days one of the most noticeable pits in my male started to worsen. So, I ended up dosing the tank again. Now, my female is totally healed up from what I can see, and my male is all healed up, except for one specific hole that doesn’t want to clear up.

I was just wondering if anyone would recommend anything besides water changes to help him. I don’t know why all the other areas have healed up on both of them except that one spot.
He’s still eating like crazy and acting like himself.

Also when I was researching causes some people were saying activated carbon can cause it? Others were saying it can’t. I was wondering what some of you think about that because I have activated carbon in my filters.

Thank you!!

 

[Finn1231]

I dont know much about oscars, but maybe try dosing the tank a few more times to completely heal your good oscar and if you can i would move the other oscar to a quarantine tank so that the other wont get it again or something like that. I suppose you would just keep dosing the quarantine tank and doing water changes until it entirely cleared up.

 

[Bruce1975]

I dont know much about oscars, but maybe try dosing the tank a few more times to completely heal your good oscar and if you can i would move the other oscar to a quarantine tank so that the other wont get it again or something like that. I suppose you would just keep dosing the quarantine tank and doing water changes until it entirely cleared up.

Okay, thank you!

 

[Colin_T]

Hole in the head disease is caused by Hexamita, a type of protozoan parasite. It thrives in dirty tanks and tanks that have a lot of rotting gunk in them. High nitrates weaken fish and allow the parasites to infect the fish.

You can usually treat minor cases with salt and daily water changes. Use 2 heaped tablespoons of rock salt for every 20 litres of water. Keep the salt in the tank for 2-4 weeks. Do a 75% water change and gravel clean the substrate every day for 2 weeks. Clean the filter.

In worse cases that haven't responded to salt, you need Metronidazole and for best results it should be used in a bare glass tank with no substrate or wood or rocks. The medication should be used for 2 weeks.

Having said all this, medication and salt will not fix the problem permanently if the tank remains dirty. Big cichlids like oscars eat a lot of meat based foods and this causes major water quality problems. You counter this with big weekly water changes, gravel cleaning the substrate and cleaning the filter.

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Cichlid tanks should get a 75% water change and complete gravel clean once a week. The filter should be cleaned at least once a month.
Any new water should be free of chlorine/ chloramine before it's added to the tank.

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The pit between the eyes could be a scar or the Hexamita could still be active. When cichlids have been affected by Hexamita, they are usually left with pits/ scars in the face and head. these remain for the rest of the fish's life. You could continue treating with metronidazole for a bit longer or try salt and water changes. If it doesn't get worse, then it will be a scar.

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BEFORE TREATING AN AQUARIUM
Remove carbon from the filter before treating or it will adsorb the medication and stop it working.

Wipe the inside of the glass down with a clean fish sponge. This removes the biofilm on the glass and the biofilm will contain lots of harmful bacteria, fungus, protozoans and various other microscopic life forms.

Do a 75% water change and gravel clean the substrate. The water change and gravel cleaning will reduce the number of disease organisms in the water and provide a cleaner environment for the fish to recover in. It also removes a lot of the gunk and this means any medication can work on treating the fish instead of being wasted killing the pathogens in the gunk.
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 when using salt or medications because they reduce the dissolved oxygen in the water.