What are the first signs of hole in the head?

Hi all,
I will post pictures of one of my threadfin acara tomorrow when I turn the lights on but essentially around the fishes lateral line I’ve found two whitish circular looking patches which are definitely not ich, after monitoring the fish for today and checking the other heckelii it’s definitely unusual and I’m pretty sure heckelii are prone to lateral line disease as most cichlids are.. what concerns me is that my pH is 6.8, gh 100 and temp is at 26° currently which all three are quite close too natural conditions. The fish in question also has not grown nearly as much as the other heckelii with the other one being almost twice its size now (both were purchased at the same size) I will get some close up pictures tomorrow sorry for the inconvenience. The fish has been eating normally on a diet of vitalis american cichlid pellets (Ill get the proper spelling tomorrow sorry) and also bloodworms however both heckelii aren’t too keen on the bloodworms, I presume if the illness happens to be lateral line disease then it will be dietary caused as I have been trying to feed a more varied protein based diet as opposed to plant matter. Saying that though I did try feeding blanched peas which they did not accept. Any ideas will be appreciated?

In fact here’s some images of the larger acara to show the difference!

And here is the smaller one quality is shocking because of lighting again apologies but even in bad quality there’s a clear larger white spot

Any other irregularities ? Like swimming pattern ? Not eating ? Hiding ? Hard to tell with the quality of the pictures though.

Dajuyu said:

Any other irregularities ? Like swimming pattern ? Not eating ? Hiding ? Hard to tell with the quality of the pictures though.

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Hi, I’m so sorry about the picture quality I’ll get some better ones in the morning and its not been as active as the larger one and seems to be more timid aswell. The larger one is definitely a male and is actually very confident whereas this one I can’t even tell the gender and has not grown very much at all. Definitely does not eat as much as the large male either. They both get on well and I haven’t seen them fight at all. The white spots only have been very visible since this morning however the day before I noticed them forming.

If they look like fluffy stuff coming out, it's time to get on getting that water fixed up, or prepare to lose them.

My severum died from that crapola.

What’s your nitrate level?

Wills said:

What’s your nitrate level?

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5ppm

Fishiemang said:

If they look like fluffy stuff coming out, it's time to get on getting that water fixed up, or prepare to lose them.

My severum died from that crapola.

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It’s very flat at the moment, Very sorry to hear about your severum

I forgot to mention I do around 50-60% water changes every week on the same day (tuesday) as I know threadfins are very sensitive to bad water

here’s some clearer photos on the white spot

Are spots occuring above the eye as well or is that the reflection / camera?
Looks like the start of HITH to me indeed.

DoubleDutch said:

Are spots occuring above the eye as well or is that the reflection / camera?
Looks like the start of HITH to me indeed.

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There are a few little ones around the nasal area aswell by the looks of it, These fish are one of my favourites I’ve read that seachem do a good treatment for it however Im unsure on using it as it’s only for hex’s where as this might not even be hole in the head in the end... I’m baffled at why only one of them have it?

SAChichlidLover said:

There are a few little ones around the nasal area aswell by the looks of it, These fish are one of my favourites I’ve read that seachem do a good treatment for it however Im unsure on using it as it’s only for hex’s where as this might not even be hole in the head in the end... I’m baffled at why only one of them have it?

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It will always start with only one and the others might not even get it if it is HITH.

DoubleDutch said:

It will always start with only one and the others might not even get it if it is HITH.

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Do you think I should get my hospital tank up and running ready for the future in case? What treatment would you recommend?