# Angel fish disease. Is it hole in the head?



## C-kidder

Got some new angel's which I am not experienced with at all and one came like this. Any angel keepers know anything about this sort of disease? It looks like hole in the head to me which I read angels get easily but I want to make sure I am hitting this with the right stuff ASAP. I was told it wasnt HITH when I asked about it however I strongly think that it is and I was the one to notice it. 
I did however go out and buy the meds for HITH and gave him some just now. Please any advice or input would be greatly appreciated as I do not know how long he has been sick but if its HITH probably a while because a hole that big doesn't happen over night.
Poor fish hope I can get him back to his former glory as he is a beautiful looking dude.


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## Niku

Didn't happen to pick him up from pet superstore in langely did you ? Looks identical to a winemilleri Geo I bought from them 4 months ago I thought it was HITH but turns out the pump on there sump was electrifying the water. Needles to say meds didn't cure it and about a month later he passed away


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## C-kidder

I did not, Got from somebody on here who got it from another person shortly before that.  Talked to him and he is giving me the male for free so I can spend the money on meds or what ever is needed to save him, but if I don't get it right the first time this fish is going to end up costing me more then its worth...... Anybody who know's angels can give me something to go off of? Id like to save him before its to late.
The person I got him from says damage in the bag from transferring but I do not see this sort of wound happening as its pretty big/deep and looks like it has been like this for a while.


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## Rockman

C-kidder said:


> but if I don't get it right the first time this fish is going to end up costing me more then its worth


If cost effectiveness is your thing you are seriously in the wrong hobby  But yeah... Getting get it right the first time would be nice.

My experience with HITH-like symptoms is sort of the opposite of that particular scenario. I've had an ongoing issue for the last six months or so that looked somewhat like HITH. I don't wanna talk about how much treating that cost (no casualties though... So that's positive). As it happens whatever it was responds best to tetracycline. Still not completely rid of it (the big holes on my worst case are still healing over).

During this period I spent a moderate amount of time reading through the peer reviewed stuff on HITH. Turns out they don't actually know what causes it (The Hexamita parasite is just one theory... There are others). You can start with the HITH meds (good a place as any); but don't get too discouraged if it doesn't work. In my case the combination of the reading I did and the drugs I tried suggested a gram-positive bacterial infection (not a biologist... So I don't know how far off the mark I was with that... But it did end up working so...).

As with any fish disease, make sure your environmental conditions are optimal first. Fish can make surprising progress on their own if conditions are good.


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## C-kidder

Rockman said:


> If cost effectiveness is your thing you are seriously in the wrong hobby  But yeah... Getting get it right the first time would be nice.
> 
> My experience with HITH-like symptoms is sort of the opposite of that particular scenario. I've had an ongoing issue for the last six months or so that looked somewhat like HITH. I don't wanna talk about how much treating that cost (no casualties though... So that's positive). As it happens whatever it was responds best to tetracycline. Still not completely rid of it (the big holes on my worst case are still healing over).
> 
> During this period I spent a moderate amount of time reading through the peer reviewed stuff on HITH. Turns out they don't actually know what causes it (The Hexamita parasite is just one theory... There are others). You can start with the HITH meds (good a place as any); but don't get too discouraged if it doesn't work. In my case the combination of the reading I did and the drugs I tried suggested a gram-positive bacterial infection (not a biologist... So I don't know how far off the mark I was with that... But it did end up working so...).
> 
> As with any fish disease, make sure your environmental conditions are optimal first. Fish can make surprising progress on their own if conditions are good.


Roger, Thanks for your help Rockman! Not so much worried about the cost but as I paid $40 for the pair and got them in this condition. I really don't see the point in picking up somebody's sick fish and paying a ton of money to fix them when they were the people who were unable to clean up or take care of the fish in the first place.  I am compassionate to animals and don't like to see anything suffer.
I read the same thing about hole in the head, nobody knows exactly what causes it because its not something that has ever been reported in the wild. (Humans mess with the stability of nature)
I appreciate you pointing out that it "responds best to tetracycline" Ill take a shot at that next If I don't see a improvement with the meds for HITH after this first treatment.


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## Rockman

C-kidder said:


> Roger, Thanks for your help Rockman! Not so much worried about the cost but as I paid $40 for the pair and got them in this condition. I really don't see the point in picking up somebody's sick fish and paying a ton of money to fix them when they were the people who were unable to clean up or take care of the fish in the first place.  I am compassionate to animals and don't like to see anything suffer.


Oh I hear you (I once took on a 'free' algae eater (or more accurately, a Pterygoplichthys joselimaianus) from a friend. Ten years and $1000-$1500 worth of upgrades later I suspect that was slightly less of a deal than I thought at the time (he doesn't even eat algae anymore... just bickers with my severum over Northfin wafers. Awesome fish though; he made treasured family pet status long ago)). Just making the obvious joke (I'm pretty sure we've all had it happen at some point).

Anyway, good luck.


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## inuudo

I have angels, but have had no experience with HITH them or any other fish, so take this FWIW and IMO. 

It looks to me like he's been in a fight and this is a scar. There are two distinct parts to that hole that look like they could be from an upper/lower jaw. He also has scars along his side, on his gill, and below his eye.


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## C-kidder

Let me add that the female is eating flakes pellets and blood worms and he hasn't touched a thing.. It honestly doesn't look like physical damage its smooth and rounded off kinda like it slowly rotted away. Treating with malafix and general cure currently.


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## Rockman

How'd you make out with these guys?


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## C-kidder

Still cleaning it up but progress has been made I will take some updated pictures. Males still doesn't really eat but movement has been increased greatly now also he will show nice colors from time to time. The female is one feisty little girl she will hit my hand and attack it non stop when I put it anywhere close to the male it's actually kinda cute hahaha. Female seems to be taking brine shrimp tubifex blood worms tetra bits and some flakes but she is still being somewhat pick with her food choices. Do you have anything you can recommend for a good staple food for them? I have been trying to get them to eat NLS flakes and their is pretty much 0 interest in it, The tetra color bits are fine I guess but I would prefer them to eat something a bit better.

Updated pic's

Female being all peppy and trying to get in front of the camera....




Male and his wound with a bunch of different angle's and one small body wound that recently showed up but hasn't caused me any concern its pretty minor. 






General cure didn't seem to do a whole lot but melafix/pimafix seems to be helping him along with diligent water changes. I wonder if he would eat live brine shrimp and thing's like that, I also have wondered if he will only eat when nobody is watching because he hasn't lost any body shape and its been a month since I got him.

Going to find some tetracycline I think and try that out as it might be worth trying to help speed up his recovery.


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## Rockman

That's good news... is this just using the metronidazole?

As far as a staple food goes, I tend to like Northfin these days (was previously using NLS... Northfin is cheaper without sacrificing in quality as far as I can tell). They go for it with a good amount of gusto (although I didn't have any problem with feeding them NLS either; I was using pellets, however). Make sure you get the right size though; I find they're less interested in food that's too small (I'm using 3 mm pellets).


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## C-kidder

This was using API general cure not metro+ from hikiri. The general cure is split of 2 ingredients. (250 mg Metronidazole and 75 mg Praziquantel per packet) 
Thanks again for the help!


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## josephl

Those look like 2 angels that came from me that went to Charles then I'm guessing to you. Looking at the pics, I would say that those are more shipping wounds than they are HTH. The other wounds on it's body seem to back up that theory. I say that because they shared a tank with breeding discus and all the remaining fish in the tank don't have HTH. HTH also seems to be caused by environmental conditions and my fish get 2 x 50% water changes daily so again I doubt if it's HTH. Glad that the fish is recovering though. 

They are both wild angels that I got when they were tiny nickel size. One is a wild Peruvian angel and the other is an unidentified wild angel that I got from Fantasy almost a year ago.

They will eventually start feeding whatever you feed them, they have been spoiled on an almost exclusive diet of fdbw's from Rick, the occasional feeding of frozen blood worms and live black worms when I get them.

PM me if you need any more info on them


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