Oscar with Hole-in-head

[evercl92]

My roommate's oscar is about 4-5 years old, about 14 in long. He's pretty much by himself in a 75 gal tank (school of 3 rosey barbs, and a 5 inch leporinus are his tankmates). He goes through periods of having hole-in-head really bad, then it will clear up for a while (couple months) then back again. It improved when my roommate moved him from the 55 gal to the 75 gal (6 months ago), but recently has gotten a big worse. It seems to occur at the same spots on his face / forehead. I pretty much take care of the tank myself, because my roommate is lazy. I've heard varying the diet helps, not feeding feeder fish, more frequent water changes. Anyone have any experience with anything like this: http://www.drsfostersmith.com/Produ...ll&Ntx=mode+matchallpartial&Np=1&N=2004&Nty=1 ?

Any insight is appreciated.

 

[rich311k]

I had my Oscar get it once. I stopped feeding goldfish and started doing 65% changes every week it never reoccurred.

 

[Apocalypse_Gold]

Metronidazole is the treatment of choice for HIH. Jungle makes a medicated food that has it, but your big oscar might ignore the small pellets.

 

[Speakerman]

Can you get a picture of this?

 

[evercl92]

Yeh, I can get a pic. Currently he has 3-5 spots, one being fairly deep (1/2 inch maybe). I'll post later tonite.

 

[DeFeKt]

water parameters? Diet?

 

[evercl92]

Water: pH 7.0, KH <3, GH 15
Diet consists of Hikari 'large' cichlid pellets, tetra cichlid sticks, occasional freeze dried earthworms.

I added a dose of seachem acid buffer tonite, so I'll check params tomorrow night.

Here are some pics: