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I feel so bad, my 1 year old 12" Oscar "Hank" has HITH!! I have done some research on it and am taking action quick.
I have him in a 75 gallon, by him self, I have 2 whisper 60 gallon filters on there and 2 bubblers.  I tested the tank and amonia is perfect, nitrite is perfect but my nitrate is at about 40.  So i did a 30% water change yesterday.  I have read to get rid of all active carbon in my filters??? How would I do that with out taking the whole filter off???  I have also read to add vitamin C to their diet. . how do I do that?? Then i read that you should treat with metronitizole. . . where do I get that??? Please help and let me know what else to do!!
Thanks so much

Wow, your O grew to 12" in a year????  I two that were 8-9" in 2 years.  Oscars are a social fish that as long as they have enough room, they are not aggressive (There are a FEW exceptions).  HITH is related more to water quality, and diet, therefore not being contageous.  You may never be able to cure it completely but you can control it.  Are you sure it is HITH?  Patches of small pits are normal.  I rescued a 10" Oscar from a pet store that had been badly beaten up, and had HITH pretty bad. That was almost 2 years ago.  He had about 5 Huge pits around his head and face that are now for the most part gone.  I have never taken out my carbon (unless I had to put in meds), and about the only other thing I did for him was give him a variety for dinner, all they fed them were feeders.

I think medicine would only be helpfull for a secondary infection, most pet stores will carry a variety of meds.  As far as vitamins.....  I don't think I have ever seen anything like that in a pet store.

Hope that helps......

I also had an Oscar with HITH. I adopted(rescued) Timmy when he was about 11" and five years old. He only had one moderately sized pit on the very centre of his forehead but it was completely cured within about a month. I did buy medicine from the pet store but found that I did not even have to resort to it. I had also read some fairly complex cures that I did not try. What I did was small water changes every few days and make sure that the tank was very clean. Timmy ate only krill previously and when I got him everytime I fed him I gave a small variety of pellets, krill, carnivore sticks, flakes and basically anything else he showed interest in. I was amazed at how quickly his head healed as I had read and been told that it is near impossible to cure HITH. I'm sure there are cases that are much more challenging to cure but my advice is to keep changing the water as much as you can, possibly keep him alone if he is with other fish that could cause stress, and give Hank as much variety as possible in his diet.  Good luck!

possibly keep him alone if he is with other fish that could cause stress, and give Hank as much variety as possible in his diet. 

DEB, I disagree with keeping him alone, unless there are tank mates that are picking on the O, I think it would be more stressfull being alone.... they are a social creature and I have seen them become quite depresed to the point of loosing their will to live when they get board. I do however agree with the diet. 

I feed my guys alot of chopped up raw steak.  I cut off the fat, and rinse it off as not to pollute the water.  I occasionally feed them chopped up hot dog, or cooked ham, if you nuke it first, then rinse it off you won't have a problem with polluting the water as bad, raw (rinsed off) fish or shrimp is also a hit with them.  Cooked fish breaks up too much.  Same with cooked chicken, and I don't recommend that raw either.

Only problem I found with that is they don't seem to have much interest in pellets, and flakes are no more than futile to begin with.... when they get board of raw steak I will fry it up, then rinse it.

Thank you everyone, i am going to try everything that i can.

A question for you LINDSAY.. HAVE YOU EVER CLEANED THE FILTER??  I mean take it to the sink and clean it good??

IF you clean the tank but not the filter its self, then you leave in waste and uneaten food at the bottom of the filter THAT re-inters the tank OVER AND OVER.. ONCE you REMOVE THE FILTER BOX and clean it, And see the CRUDE, you will do so more often.. ONCE a week when you do the water change is needed to keep the water from bad levels of Nitrates and others that test kits CAN NOT DETECT  OR are made to detect in a tank..

Take the FILTERS to the kitchen SINK and SCRUB THEM OUT GOOD!! Clean the hole that the impeller rest in as slime coat gets in and slows down the filter return.. Clean the impeller too gently with a brush, a OLD tooth brush works good here..

YOU can get the BRUSHS to clean the filter at the PET DEPARTMENT at most places..  A baby bottle brush works good too..

Add back in NEW filter media pads.. and YOU can clean them OFF under high pressure from the KITCHEN FAUSET to save money.. HOLD them sideways and using your finger as you would out side with the hose, get a hard stream of water going and rinse them off good.. I do this and reuse them over several dozen times. I have 17 Emperor filters so I have to save where I can.. I do however, after two weeks, remove the carbon from the pads.. THIS needs to be done.. NO EXCEPTIONS!

NOW on the carbon,, NO I dont' believe that the Carbon holds ANY bacterial that can give a Oscar HITH or any other fish for that matter a disease.. When you change out the media pads, like every week to two weeks, most ppl add in NEW ONES, so that takes care of the BADS IN THE OLD MEDIA PAD!! Most ppl do this, but some NEVER clean the filter BOX and THAT can lead to problems with unwanted illness in a tank.. So cleaning the FILTER BOX is VERY important!!

A CANISTER filter now is another matter.. as most ppl dont' CHAGE OUT or clean them good, but every three months or so..

BUT YES you have to remove the carbon from the filter as ALL MEDS wil be ABSORBED and removed.. Most carbon now are sealed into the media pads, so I take a NEW ONE and CUT A SLIT AT THE TOP OF A DRY ONE, and shake out the carbon in a deep bowl to reuse later.. KEEP this pad only for when you MED the tank.. that way you always have a media pad just for that reason.. Other filter pads are made to add in the carbon NOT sealed, that is a easy filter pad to use. JUST don't add in the carbon..

HITH is curable but YOU have to maintain a clean tank.. Metronidazole is the best med here to use.. YOU really need a med tank JUST FOR THE OSCAR but the meds won't hurt the other fish.. they have a smaller cyclinder of Metronidazole that most fish stores carry.. YOU delute it in tank water before you add to the tank!! Double the first three doses and then normall dose after wards 3x.. A 25% water change INBETWEEN each DAILY dose is required.. So be aware of that!!

http://www.drsfostersmith.com/Product/P ... 004+113021

DO NOT FEED BEEFHEART OR ANY OTHER FOOD THAT FALLS APART INTO THE WATER!!

Oscars are messy eaters and that can cause more problems with the water staying cleaner..

GET some good pellets, Hikari is the best OR any other that he is used to eating..
They have a pellet now that contains meds that HITH fish need to kill out the infestation/infection from within.. YOU only feed this for 4 days only stop for a week then resume the 4 days again..
the problem with Oscars is they do TASTE the food so he might not eat the pellets.. YOU can try this but I am not saying that he wil eat it.. See the below link to add in vitamins to the food directly..
they have them in bigger pellets size now, not here at Foster/smith.. So get the bigger ones. Most fish stores have these.. YOU need the anti parasite one:

http://www.drsfostersmith.com/Product/P ... 004+113021

A good vitamin to add to the water AND the food, EXTRA vitamin C added: http://www.drsfostersmith.com/Product/p ... 4998&rel=1


DO not mix any medications!! So if you get ONE kind, dont' use the Metro with out a 50% water change first!!

Keep me posted on WHAT you are using so I can help you along the way.. IF you get this going NOW, you can help stop the spread faster and he might pull through..

CLEAN THE FILTER NOW!! 
 

Barb.....  I'm not saying that I don't agree with you, but.....  won't cleaning out the filter in regular tap water kill the benificial bacteria that lives in said crudd???

NOT really. you have enough in the tank to rebot the bio.. Bio is on everything that is IN the tank.. IF you have NEVER cleaned the filter box its self, then this is WHY the Oscar is having a problem.. I clean mine every water change.. IF you are worried so much about the bio deal, then get filters with bio-wheels.. This takes care of any problems as if YOU change out to much water.. The bio-wheel filters are the way to go really, YOU Never clean the WHEELS but you still have to clean the box its self.. I have TWO  Emporers 400 filters on my 75 gal tanks and it stays crystal clear and I let it go beyound three weeks (watching grandkids for the summer) and the fish where in great condition.. Amazing that.. The Male Midas has been known to get some HITH just in a few week time frame if the filters are not maintained weekly.. ( I have heavy hoods and it is hard to get the filter off)  I only feed them daily Pellets and cooked salad shrimp for a protein treat 2x week.. So YES  I think the filter is the" main problem" and other NON cleaning methods of the fish keeper in most tanks that get the HITH disease going in a tank when the filters are not cleaned.. NOT VACUUMING your substate WEEKLY with Oscars and other large American Cichlids also feeds this problem..

FOOD that most ppl feed them is a MEAT based food.. IN a tank at 78F temp and the messyness of the Oscar when it eats, ONLY 2/3  or less, gets eaten, the rest falls to the bottom and stays their, furminting..  Beefheart may be SO CALLED good for the Oscar, but not good for your water conditions.. IF you are going to use these MEAT BASED FOODS, do so when you clean the tank within HOURS of feeding.. The filter gets it small share and that just furments in the media pad That breaks down in the filter pad and re-enters the tank also.. until YOU add in a new one..  Some debri/waste is heavy and falls down into the bottom of the filter.. AGAIN furminting..  So clean them BOTH when you do your water changes.. YOU are not removing that much water in a 75 gal to hurt your bio in the tank UNLESS you go OVER 50%..

IF you would like to see about getting a Bio-Wheel filter, I recommend the Emperor 400,  then get them on LINE.. They are cheaper by far.. YOU can get two for what you pay for ONE at a LFS..

http://www.drsfostersmith.com/Product/P ... 2004+22769
 
Big Als has them too, but not that much less of a savings:

http://www.bigalsonline.com/BigAlsUS/ct ... owerfilter

PET solution is about the same also.. Just to give you and OTHERS links to great fish products/deals:

http://www.petsolutions.com/Emperor+400 ... 19-C-.aspx

Whenever I do a water change on any of my tanks, I always clean out the filter, always.  Just whatever you do, don't put the bio-wheel in any solvent or anything.  If you have one, the bio-wheel has more biological bacteria than anywhere else in the tank.  Also, my blue acaras have several times hinted of HITH and I've always headed it off by a big tank cleaning.  Goes right away.