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My oscar just sits at the top of the water and doesnt swim around alot anymore and he is ggetting holes in his fins and indents on his face i am not sure if it is HITH or not... my shark which is in the tank with him also is getting a hole in his tail... i have no idea what this is because there is one other fish in the tank and there is nothing wrong with him. if any one has any idea on what to do please tell me i do not want them to die i love these fish and they do not seem happy at all.

thanks
Will

My oscar just sits at the top of the water and doesnt swim around alot anymore and he is ggetting holes in his fins and indents on his face i am not sure if it is HITH or not... my shark which is in the tank with him also is getting a hole in his tail... i have no idea what this is because there is one other fish in the tank and there is nothing wrong with him. if any one has any idea on what to do please tell me i do not want them to die i love these fish and they do not seem happy at all.

thanks
Will

Checked your water lately? for Amonia? anything?

If not, a water change more then likely wouldn't hurt until you find out what the problem is , sounds like a water quality issue though.

what are the other two fish? Sounds like you have a bully to me. halve the amount of food but double the amount of feeding so there's less of a need to compete at feeding time, bring in more hidey holes etc.

One thing that confuses me though is that the oscar is at the top. By nature they will sulk at the bottom of the tank so perhaps the fish beating them prefers the bottom and keeps the oscar hanging around at the top?

Otherwise grab a torch and have a close look around the edge of the holes in the fins, if there is any white furry stuff or fungus a simple fin and tail rot ( flexibacter colimnarus) cure will be fine. But really I doubt disease. Hole in the head is more secluded to, well, the head, and I'm pretty confident it's not a contagious disease, especially for a shark to pick up. Plus there wouldn't be multiple holes being that noticeable, it's a gradual thing that takes a while to notice. The indents would be cause by another fishes mouth or by objects in the tank that he runs into when being attatcked. (they don't really look where they're going!!!)

A lot of times fish can pick on eachother causing behavioural changes and sometimes it can look pretty gross, which is why its easy for people to assume disease is the cause. The shark only has nips in his tail because he'll try swim away, but when oscars are threatened they go parallell to their attacker and curl towards them so that their tails and heads take the beating instead of their more vulnerable middle bits. Like this [oscar]( ---[bad fish]
Quite a smart defence really.

anyway hope this helps!!!