Salt used with maracyn 2

[nowings]

I was just wondering if I can add Salt to help in my treatment with Maracyn 2. I really not sure what I am treating, I am just trying this out and hoping for improvement!!!

My 55 gallon tank of 5 discus have become very stressed and scared with rapid breathing for about the last 2 1/2 weeks. They are still eating well, as long as nobody is near the tank! it tanks them about 5 minutes to come out after I put there food in. If nobody is near the tank for a while, Thye sorta look fine, aside from being a little dark and breathing heavy.

The water is fine!!! The Ph is 6.5, no ammonia or nitrates. Water hardness is very low, I use a R/O system. They get 50% water changes twice a week. Temp is 84. They dont have any white stools. A few of the seem to have a few scales missing if you look at them head on.

Previous to them acting this way, thye were happy happy fish. They were always begging for food!!! They were never scared!! There were no changes in this tank when they started acting like this. No new fish or anything. They are in our main living room, so there ahs always been a lot of activity in this room. But they used to enjoy all the attention. Now I am constantley yelling at everybody to stay wawy from them!!!

If this dosen't work, I guees I will start treating them for Parasites. But I have spent hours staring at them and I dont see any physical sign of parasites. They dont rub against anything. They don't look like they are in danger of dying as of yet, but they are very stressed!!!

Sorry for the long story!!! All suggestion will be great!!

PS: Maracyn 2 says it treat for Fin/tail rot, Dropsy, Septicemia, Popeye and Gill disease!!!

nancy

[jeep]

Nancy,

Are you using straight RO?

Brian

[nowings]

Yes, the I add back Discus Trace. I have well water. It really bad. It very hard, etc..

nancy

[jeep]

Hi,

I'm not sure medicating them is necessary at this point. At least hold off until a specific cause has been determined. Skittishness and rapid breathing could be minor symptoms and I think you have a water quality issue rather than an illness. You may want to make the water harder. Somewhere in the 250+ TDS range.

You really should have some level of nitrates in your water. If not then your biological filtration may have an issue. Are you sure you're not talking about 0 nitrItes? Have you noticed the possibility of hex?

I would first raise the temp to around 88 - 90 and add salt at 1 TBS per 10 gallons or as much as 1:5 gallons.

I'm not a medication expert, but I've had great success with salt and it can be a miracle cure for most problems.

How old are these fish?

Brian

[Carol_Roberts]

I wonder if your pH is crashing between the twice weekly water changes. Do you have a GH and KH test kit? You should try to keep your water around GH 6.

what are the parameters of your well water? I use well water and my numbers are GH 12, pH 6.8 (tap) rising to pH 7.8 after aging. I have to age it to off gas the trapped CO2. Do you age your water?

[nowings]

PH is always the same when i check it of 6.5.

KH and gh is about 2.

Yes, I age my water. I keep 2 55 gallon containers of water. I use an airstone and heaters in them.

My tap water is has a PH THAT IS ABOVE 8.0, i not sure of the hardenss but I know it way up there!!

nancy

[nowings]

jeep,
Yes, I meant nitrites are "0". What is the difference between nitrates and nitrites???

nancy

[jeep]

Ammonia is converted to Nitrites, which are converted to Nitrates. Nitrates are more tolerable that Ammonia or Nitrites, but should be kept to a minimum.

Go out and pick up a Nitrate test kit. I bet with only 2 water changes a week your nitrates will be high.

If so, try doing several large water changes asap and then try increasing regular water changes to 3-4 times a week.

Also, remember that discus do very well in harder water. You may be able to use straight well water or maybe 50/50 RO/tap.

Brian

[Nightowl]

Hi Nancy, it is not recommended to use salt w/ medications like maracyn or maracyn 2 because the salt limits the effectiveness of the medication & you would have to adjust the dosage accordingly. Maracyn2 is generally recommended for internal bacterial infections.....would not recommend using strong antibiotics unless you're sure..
Ammonia goes to nitrite, nitrite to nitrate, and(in nature) a portion of nitrate leaves water as free nitrogen (gas) into the air(done by anerobic bacteria), harder to duplicate in an aquarium...hense the need for water changes. You say the fish are not rubbing on anything...IMO this would rule out bacterial gill infection. I had(and lost) a tank full of fish 3 yrs. ago to bacterial gill disease and they were flipping out. scratching....even hitting their gills on stuff trying to oust the invaders.
I don't use RO, but is that in order as far as the different stages,etc?
With 50% water changes twice a week, are your fish going through drastic ph changes...how close is new water to old water? If its way different, try doing 20% w/c every other day, for example.(10% daily?).
I often find when fish breath heavy , darken, seem nervous it can be as others stated water quality issues, particularly low ph combined w/ high nitrAtes. If they had a serious gill infection going on for 2.5 weeks I believe you would have lost some fish by now.
The best solution for many discus problems is: w/c,w/c,w/c....changing water w/ water of similar chemical composition AND temperature should be as close as possible........how close is temp of your w/c water??
Also, nitrites are very harmful...they limit fish's ability to carry oxygen thru bloodstream. Nitrates are less harmful but at high levels can put fish off their feed and impede their growth. Well hope this helped....... J.T.

[nowings]

Thanks Everybody,

I have almost tried everything, aside form the Nitrate testing. The water I use for water changing is almost Exact to tank water. It is heated at the same temp.

Hopefully they will do better soon!

nancy

[nowings]

Well, I took my fish water to LFS so I could get the nitrates tested because I don't have theat test kit. Nitrates are 0. nitites are 0.,

I give up, we will just have to see what happens.

nancy