rotting face

[imagirlgeek]

Soaking his food every day in Vita-Chem. Early on, I used Tetracycline with no noticeable improvement. About midway through, I used Ick-Attack since it's organic, with no noticeable improvement. Since soaking his food in vitamins, the top sore is completely healed and the bottom sore is almost gone. It's been 6 1/2 weeks since the sores showed up. The vitamin recommendation came from an aquatic vet I emailed.

[aggrofishkeeper]

The word "crater" instantly told me it was HITH disease. But I could be wrong, there is other conditions that have the same symptoms. However we can all agree there is something wrong with your Oscar. Therefore I would act immediately by changing water and applying medication. Some say HITH is caused by the use of carbon media or by live feeders that sometimes carry diseases.

[nacra99]

Soaking his food every day in Vita-Chem. Early on, I used Tetracycline with no noticeable improvement. About midway through, I used Ick-Attack since it's organic, with no noticeable improvement. Since soaking his food in vitamins, the top sore is completely healed and the bottom sore is almost gone. It's been 6 1/2 weeks since the sores showed up. The vitamin recommendation came from an aquatic vet I emailed.

Makes sense..... Hex in the digestive tract will affect the ability of the fish to absorb nutrients. Adding vitamins will probably help as it gives the fish more of it to try to absorb. That in turn helps the immune system which will help to heal the external symptoms. Hence i suggested feeding the fish hex to take care of the internal symptoms.

[nacra99]

I have also not heard of a bump or sore turning into a crater/hole with any diagnosis of HITH.

Well... it is actually quite consistent with Heximita. He did mention a "pimple" which grew and eventually burst open. And besides, Angels, Discus & Oscars seem to be particularly susceptible to Hex.

This is still being debated, but people think that HITH is an external form of Hex.
Either way, treatment is Metro in the water to target the sore + metro in the food to target the digestive tract (+ optionally a second broad spectrum antibiotic to prevent secondary infections.

[aggrofishkeeper]

Or wait and find out what disease your Oscar really has, but by that time, your Oscar is probably too far gone to even try to save it. You can skip medication and go straight to raising the temperature and adding salt to the tank, and keep up water changes....Daily.

[mark razmandi]

glad to hear things are going better