Toss out discus tankmates or still try it out?

[dkeef]

Ok, here it goes. as im waiting for kennys discus arrival, i got most of my dither fish for the tank. they are in 40gal breeder QT tank.
total of 80 fish of rummynose, neon dwarf rainbows, albino/skunk cories.
now i got them tues and last night i noticed some of rainbows has ick and also found one albino cory with fin rot on his tail. this morning the albino cory with fin rot died and one of skunk cory died also.
this evening, i lost another skunk cory and albino cory which had fin rot as well.
yesterday as soon as i noticed ick, i cranked the temp from 80 to 86 and UV was on.
today, i added 1/2 teaspoon SALT per gallon(due to having cories and tetras which are sensitive to salt) and also dosed MELAFIX for fin rot(turned uv off per melafix instruction).

now in this kind of situation, if the fish i treat survive and show no signs of illness no longer, do u even try the QT with the discus(sacrificial) i got?
some of you have told me dont add any other fish but discus.
but at least as far as cories are concerned, since i have a heavy planted tank, i do need cories to clean up my substrate for leftover food.

anyway, my question goes to those of you who HAVE dither fish with discus(not ones who would never put dither fish with discus), would u keep following Treatment and make sure everything is good and join them with discus or would u just say this batch of fish i got is no good (even if they get cured) and dont mix them with discus???

[BigWave]

do u even try the QT with the discus(sacrificial) i got?


I am not totally sure what you mean here, but I will give it a shot.

I personally would say wait 6 months and make sure that everyone is healthy, and then mix them in if you feel it is worth it. Maybe de-worm, and treat the dither fish in a month once they have recovered from whatever you have got going on now.

On a side note how did you cycle the QT tank?

I'm in a similar situation where I would LIKE to order a bunch of cardinals and some cory cats, to go with my discus, but you are talking me out of it! I think for now I am just sticking with Discus only, and just so you know they get the food off the substrate in my planted tank just fine. I do have a beach type area that I feed over so the food falls there, and the discus clean it up.

[strawberryblonde]

Yikes, you're now an official poster boy for QT, huh? =)

If it was me, I wouldn't give up on the idea of dither fish and cory's, even if this batch turns out to be too sick to ever join the discus in the big tank. I have dithers and cory's and they all get along just fine, going on 2 years now.

The important thing now is to clean up the ick and the fin rot. Adding salt and raising temps will speed up the lifecycle of ick, just be sure to do massive daily water changes and redose the salt each time. Do you have a separate smaller tank where you could put the cories so you can treat for fin rot? I'd almost bet that they can recover from it with nothing but a separate tank and daily water changes. If not, there are several inexpensive treatments on the market. I'm just a wee bit leary of assuming that it's actual fin rot and I suspect it might be stress and harassment from the rainbows. My group of rainbows surprised me by being a whole lot meaner than I'd ever heard they were! They were fine so long as they were top dogs in the tank, but if they felt crowded for space they got nippy and would chase and bump my other dither fish and even the cory's.

They're the ones I think I cautioned you about, right? I'm pretty sure that I mentioned that I had mine in the tank for only a VERY short while before I made the decision to rehome them to a tank of their own. They are FAST fish, busy fish, can be nippy and will zip about eating everything in sight. My poor discus and GBR's, who are much slower to eat often went hungry thanks to those darned neon rainbows. <sigh>

Back to treatment in the QT tank. Once the ick has cleared and you've sorted out the fin rot troubles, definitely do a round of prazi. My personal favorite med for that is Tetra Parasite Guard. It's cheap, easy to use and contains both Prazi and Diflubenzuron along with Acriflavine so you're cleaning up gill flukes, worms and any internal bacterial issues all in one shot.

My tetras and cory's tolerated it just fine.

After that, just daily water changes and keep an eye on them for anything else that might crop up. Most likely with clean water and plenty of high quality food their immune systems will recover and they'll be ok.

[dkeef]

Yes im a poster boy to QT for now...hopefully i can graduate from this soon...how about prazipro?

should i be doing daily water change? and dose same amount of salt, melafix everyday? then do prazi?

i also have metro from before...

[GrayLadyPat]

I am actually surprised you have ich...usually the higher temps that discus prefer will keep it at bay.

Also, if I read your post correctly, you said you have 80 fish in a 40gal tank? if that is indeed the stocking level, I believe it's way overcrowded. Better to spend the money on quality rather than quantity.

I have 6 cardinals, 6 rummy noses, 2 red eye tetras, 3 albino bristlenose, and 2 sterbae corys along with my discus. all in a 60 gallon tank. I won't put any more dithers in there, but I am contemplating a couple more discus. Everyone is getting along fine, eating well, and aside from the minor cardinal chasing, the discus are all fat and happy. Having dither fish isn't the problem.

In any case, it's better to use the Tetra Parasite Guard as mentioned. Melafix, in my opinion does absolutely nothing with regard to parasites, and I am not sure that it does anything else, either.

Also, while the finny ones are sick, I would do daily water changes, and large ones. 70-80% or even more, if you can.

One last piece of advice from a fello newbie: don't end QT too soon. They may look healthy and happy, but you want to make sure that everything is good before you combine them. Also, QT everything...plants, rocks, fish, even decorations if you get them used.

I wish you the best of luck. Cheers!

[Elliots]

I would make sure the other fish are well. I would treat them and retreat them then watch them for a week or two. If they look OK and are cured I would say you are good. I am sure you look at your fish daily for a while so if something is wrong you will see. I know everyone tries to keep their Discus healthy but if something does happen make sure you have plenty of medication handy to treat the Discus. DO NOT medicate the Discus if you do not know for sure what is wrong. If you medicate any fish check that the BB are not killed by the medication. If the BB are killed you need to re-establish them. That means more frequent and larger water changes to keep the ammonia and nitrates down. If the BB do die I suggest adding bacteria with something like API Quick Start.

[strawberryblonde]

Yes im a poster boy to QT for now...hopefully i can graduate from this soon...how about prazipro?

should i be doing daily water change? and dose same amount of salt, melafix everyday? then do prazi?

i also have metro from before...

Prazipro is fine, but more expensive and doesn't contain the diflubenzuron and acriflavine.

Definitely do LARGE daily water changes and redose the salt with each water change. No melafix though, that stuff is basically snake oil.

So Salt and Heat first, then Tetra Parasite Guard if you can get it, Prazipro if you can't.

Are you able to QT the cory's in a separate tank so they don't get harassed by the rainbows?

[dkeef]

These fish came from store already with ick. I just missed it cuz it was dark and hard to see. 40gal is the qt tank. They will go into 320 gal tank with discus after qt.

I can treat with tetra paraguard. But 8 tab treats 80gal. Is it one time treat? Not 1tab/10gal dose for few days?
But paraguard wont treat fin rot which is bacterial infection so thats why im using melafix.
Also rainbows are not harassing cories at all.

Some of skunk cories died more. I wonder if 86f temp is killing them.
Also should i have uv light on?

[dkeef]

Another thought just occured. When i got all my plants from singapore, i never qt them.
My tank is heavily planted.
Man i hope discus dont get sick.

[strawberryblonde]

These fish came from store already with ick. I just missed it cuz it was dark and hard to see. 40gal is the qt tank. They will go into 320 gal tank with discus after qt.

I can treat with tetra paraguard. But 8 tab treats 80gal. Is it one time treat? Not 1tab/10gal dose for few days?
But paraguard wont treat fin rot which is bacterial infection so thats why im using melafix.
Also rainbows are not harassing cories at all.

Some of skunk cories died more. I wonder if 86f temp is killing them.
Also should i have uv light on?

For treating with Tetra Parasite Guard in a 40g tank you'll want to buy enough for 5 days of treatment. Since you'll be changing water every day, that means that you need 20 tabs, or 4 boxes.

For the Cories and just for general information: Melafix doesn't do anything to help with infections. It has a pretty bad reputation around here as nothing more than snake oil. The only ingredient is an oil from the Melaleuca tree. It has various names, Melaleuca, Tea Tree Oil, Cajaput Oil, etc. It does have antiseptic properties, but just as an experiment, have you ever tried Tea Tree Oil on yourself? Go buy some and rub a wee bit on a cut! Once you experience it for yourself you'll never use it in a fish tank again. It's about the same as smearing Ben Gay on your genitals.

Almost forgot to mention that the concentration of Tea Tree Oil in Melafix is almost negligible, 1% in solution, which is then diluted by the tank water.

I know that using the Parasite Guard most likely won't cure the fin rot, which is why I was recommending putting them in a separate tank for treatment. No sense treating all of the fish for something that only one group has, right? =)

I know that people here have mentioned possible issues with some of the fish you had planned to place in your discus tank. I'm on the fence with the dwarf rainbows because of my past experiences with them. The other fish that was mentioned was the Skunk Corydora, or Corydoras Arcuatus. They, like Albino Corydoras prefer cooler waters. Some will die off in high temps like the ones you are currently using...86F, right? The ones who survive may do ok in your discus tank, but the higher the temps, the shorter the lifespan for them. The top range for Skunk Cory's is 81F.

So please please please, get those little guys into a separate QT tank with cooler temps and then treat the fin rot if it doesn't clear up on its own in a day or two.

[dkeef]

At this point ones with fin rot are gone.
But i do think corys need to be in cooler temp. 86 is too high for them.
Cuz all the rest of fish are fine. Just skunk cories are dieing.
May need separate qt like u said. But what about lowering temp of current qt tank to 82 and just use paraguard and salt?

[GrayLadyPat]

Sorry, I misread your original post. I thought you had 80 fish in a 40 gal tank... my bad....

[dkeef]

i guess albino cories can tolerate high temps better than skunk cories?

[strawberryblonde]

They actually do, even though it's not recommended! I had 2 Albino's in my discus tank for 2 years, till one of them got sucked into my python last month. The other is quite fat and healthy. Sterbai's are actually a better choice for discus tanks. They are cute as buttons and do a fantastic job of cleaning up leftover food. I only have 4 Sterbai's and 1 Albino in my tank and there's never even a single morsel left on the bottom.

I probably overfeed my discus a bit (9 of them in a 115g along with the remaining 10 cardinals) because 4 of them are still growing like weeds. And just 5 cory's keep it super clean. Did I mention that I have fat cory's? LOL

[dkeef]

well i lost 6 out 12 skunk cories. thinking of letting them go and get sterbai next time. albinos are ok

[strawberryblonde]

Yep, I'm not surprised that the Albino's are fine. For some reason they have a rep as delicate fish, but mine have proved otherwise. They've been through some meds and salt treatments that should have killed them...and it didn't even slow them down. LOL

[dkeef]

what do u think of this tetra lifeguard tabs?
its all in one med.
http://www.kensfish.com/aquarium-supplies/fish-medication/tetra-lifeguard-tabs.html