Ah yeah, sorry one of the mods moved this part of my thread over to this forum, so the whole story wasn't included!
He's been housed in this same 55 gallon tank for 3 or maybe 4 years, he's had the HITH for at least the last two years, and it seems to come and go in severity, however it is never fully gone. The way it is now is definately on the better side of what it usually is. He's about 9", and has a 7" Pleco in with him. 2" of 1/4" gravel substrate, a couple lava rocks, and a calcium carbonate rock. Filtration is an AquaClear 500 and an AquaClear 200. A 275 gph AquaClear powerhead is in one of the corners. She rinses the filter media (just the AC sponge) in tap water when she does waterchanges, and doesn't ever remember replacing the sponge.
Temperature is kept at 73; she goes by the stick on thermometer which says 79, but I just used my good one that I use for my reef tanks, and it says 73 (so we'll go with that!), I just turned it up to 78. I tested her tank for her (I don't think it's ever been tested before) to prove to her how bad I knew the water in there really is; Ammonia ~ 0, Nitrite ~ trace, Nitrates ~ 75. I knew the nitrates were going to be REALLY high because she doesn't do big enough or often enough water changes.
I did a 75% waterchange the day after the test results (it's now 5 days after testing), and tested it again for nitrates which were then 25. I'm going to do another 75% waterchange today for her. She does waterchanges a bit irregularly...about 40% every 2-3 weeks. I've been bugging her to do them weekly. She vacuums the gravel profusely during waterchanges (but doesn't move the rocks to vacuum under them).
Oh, and she feeds Oscar the Hikari Cichlid Gold large pellets as many as he will eat until he starts to show less interest, which is probably about 15-20 of them. This is the only food he gets.
Is the rotten nostrils part of the HITH? What is HLLE?