# Hith, Need Help



## flex fish (Aug 20, 2010)

I have a 14" rhom with hith, I know the best stuff to use is metro plus but my tank is 
big for the treatment, 210 7x24x24 I think he's over the disease but I want to cure his deep scares, doing water changes
and adding salt temp is 80 feed good diet of whole fish injected with vita chem and also scallops, tilapia and jumbo shrimp, 
need some expertise on what I should, or just wait it out


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## CLUSTER ONE (Aug 2, 2006)

flex fish said:


> I have a 14" rhom with hith, I know the best stuff to use is metro plus but my tank is
> big for the treatment, 210 7x24x24 I think he's over the disease but I want to cure his deep scares, doing water changes
> and adding salt temp is 80 feed good diet of whole fish injected with vita chem and also scallops, tilapia and jumbo shrimp,
> need some expertise on what I should, or just wait it out


 If you treat your tank with anything your tank is still big. If its better i would just keep the water pristine and wait, but if you want to be sure Id do some more metro as a bottle i would think should be able to do a treatment or two in your tank.

The diet sounds really good so that with excellent water quality should clear it up. A powerhead may also help to keep him active and increase his metabolism so he heals faster


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## Guest (Aug 20, 2010)

When I treated my tank (125G) I needed 1 complete bottle and 1/4 of another. I believe 1 bottle does 100G. What I would do is empty 1/4 of your tanks water. This still gives your fish plenty of room and then reduces the amount of medication needed to do a treatment.


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## flex fish (Aug 20, 2010)

Thanks for the fast response cluster one, I'll just wait it out and keep prestien water


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## Grosse Gurke (Jan 3, 2003)

If you want to treat the tank....ksls is on the right track. I have a rhom in a 180 and I drained it down to 100 gallons for treatment. The treatment also required daily 1/4 water changes so it was easier to drain/fill less water.

As far as HITH...I still dont think they know the cause. Most think it has to do with poor water conditions, which might be true....but I suspect there might be more to it...like a bacteria. a few years ago had to treat my rhom for a bacterial infection with a very aggressive bi-spectral antibacterial medication....and from what I hear...my rhom is one of the few large rhoms that has been in the hobby for a long time that doesnt have HITH. Another theory is that carbon is the cause...well...I never use carbon so that might be part of it as well.

Good water and diet certainly wont hurt...Im just not convinced they will prevent HITH.


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## Ja'eh (Jan 8, 2007)

ksls said:


> When I treated my tank (125G) I needed 1 complete bottle and 1/4 of another. I believe 1 bottle does 100G. What I would do is empty 1/4 of your tanks water. This still gives your fish plenty of room and then reduces the amount of medication needed to do a treatment.


This is such a great method, I can't believe more people don't practice this when treating with meds. With my smaller set ups I don't bother lowering the water level but on my larger tanks I make it a must that's why I always leave a bit of room when cutting my hoses to size so as to be able to pull down the out take hose on my canister filters.


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## CLUSTER ONE (Aug 2, 2006)

Grosse Gurke said:


> If you want to treat the tank....ksls is on the right track. I have a rhom in a 180 and I drained it down to 100 gallons for treatment. The treatment also required daily 1/4 water changes so it was easier to drain/fill less water.
> 
> As far as HITH...I still dont think they know the cause. Most think it has to do with poor water conditions, which might be true....but I suspect there might be more to it...like a bacteria. a few years ago had to treat my rhom for a bacterial infection with a very aggressive bi-spectral antibacterial medication....and from what I hear...my rhom is one of the few large rhoms that has been in the hobby for a long time that doesnt have HITH. Another theory is that carbon is the cause...well...I never use carbon so that might be part of it as well.
> 
> Good water and diet certainly wont hurt...Im just not convinced they will prevent HITH.


ANother theory is stray voltage from heaters, filters..., but like the other theories there is no real evidence.


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## flex fish (Aug 20, 2010)

That's sounds like a good Idea but I'm running a huge sump and a fx5 I would have to stop my main source 
of bacteria from running I'll lose alot of good bacteria if I did it for 5 to 7 days am I right, don't I need to keep my Main source of bacteria running
if not I could always just stick him in a cooler with a power head for 5 days no? Answers would help thanks guys


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## CLUSTER ONE (Aug 2, 2006)

flex fish said:


> That's sounds like a good Idea but I'm running a huge sump and a fx5 I would have to stop my main source
> of bacteria from running I'll lose alot of good bacteria if I did it for 5 to 7 days am I right, don't I need to keep my Main source of bacteria running
> if not I could always just stick him in a cooler with a power head for 5 days no? Answers would help thanks guys


 With a sump you will probably have to dose the whole tank if you dose as you cant drop the water level and keep the sump going. You could keep the fx5 going, but will probably have to restablish the media in the sump to some degree again.. Can you get anly larger bottles of metro?

I wouldnt put a rhom in a cooler other then transport as it will stress him majory and could kill him. If you have a smalelr tank like 75g thatwould be better if you dont want to dose the whole tank as a 75g would be enough room for him for a bit.


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## flex fish (Aug 20, 2010)

Just alittle info on the rhum I bought him from Pedro like this I'm not sayin it was his
fault but this is how I got him, if you go to the sell page and go to Aquascape he's the rhom takin picture
with the guy from river monsters you can't really see his scars becuse there on the front of his face
but he's nice and eats like a pig everthing is injected with vita chem, he'll be show quality
with alittle TLC, just need some expertise


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## Grosse Gurke (Jan 3, 2003)

When I have had to treat a tank with a sump....what I do is run a smaller powerhead and totally bypass the tank. The powerhead would normally pump water into the tank...I just have it pump the water back into the sump over my bio-media. Then I toss in a piece of shrimp or fish and just let it rot to feed the bacteria. If you had a tank full of pygos you might get a small spike when you hook it back up...but with a large rhom...you can simply reduce the feeding for a bit...and you would be fine. When you are treating a fish you should cut back on feeding anyways as many medications will kill or reduce your populations of good bacteria...so just running the fx would be fine.

Good luck man.


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## flex fish (Aug 20, 2010)

Thanks man I'll try that


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## flex fish (Aug 20, 2010)

How long does it take for the metro plus to work, and could I feed in food instead


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