Outbreak in the house

[2075turner]

Well I sad to say that there is an outbreak of Discus plague going on in my house. To date I haven't seen any signs that it has affected the competition fish...and I hope that I caught it in time. They all look fine as of now and are acting like normal (eating/swimming/pooping) If you want to follow the thread it is in the disease section. oh...and the eggs....they turned white and the parents ate them after a few days of taking care of them. I figured as much as their water is not conditioned for breeding. Anyways, the battle is on to control the outbreak. Cross your fingers....

[Scribbles]

Wow, sorry to hear about the outbreak. I hope that everything works out and that the rest of your fish stay healthy.

Chris

[Eddie]

Definitely hoping the challenge fish dont get infected! They are some KILLER beauty's.

All the best Evelyn and take care,

Eddie

[wgtaylor]

Evelyn
Didn't realize you had so many discus and tanks !
The plague can be absolutely nerve racking. Hope you can keep it under control and especially away from the contest discus.
Wish you the best,
Bill

[mikel]

Wow, best of luck with the disease control! Your comp. fish look great! mike:)

[Chad Hughes]

Best of luck with the disease battle. What do you think spurred the outbreak?

Best wishes!

[calihawker]

Good luck with that Evelyn. Contest fish look amazing! Great job!

[2075turner]

Just wanted to drop a quick line that as of today all the fishies are still okay in my main fish room. I still have the two tanks in the other room under close watch. I had to cull two more since my last post, however the remainer are looking fine. I am hoping that this is the end but I will be leaving them in isolation for a while still.

[2075turner]

Best of luck with the disease battle. What do you think spurred the outbreak?

Best wishes!

Hey Chad,

Not sure what brought it on, but man is it ever fast in spreading. It only took two days to infect the three tanks. Hope that I have it under control now...I guess that time will tell.

[Chad Hughes]

Hey Chad,

Not sure what brought it on, but man is it ever fast in spreading. It only took two days to infect the three tanks. Hope that I have it under control now...I guess that time will tell.

Wow! Sorry to hear of this. Please keep us all posted. My thoughts are with you!

Best wishes!

[yim11]

Hey Chad,

Not sure what brought it on, but man is it ever fast in spreading. It only took two days to infect the three tanks. Hope that I have it under control now...I guess that time will tell.

Very strange, seems like everytime someone has seen this they had brought in new fish...

Thanks,
-jim

[Eddie]

Glad to hear the contest fish are still unaffected Evelyn. Hopefully the storm is settled as it sounds so.

Take care and all the best!

Eddie

[seanyuki]

Hey Evelyn.....good to know the discus are getting better and what meds are you treating them since I also have an outbreak at my place lol.

[2075turner]

Hey Evelyn.....good to know the discus are getting better and what meds are you treating them since I also have an outbreak at my place lol.

Oh Man Francis,

I hope that you have caught it in time. I had to cull 22 of my fish in order to keep it under control. I used formalin 3 that I picked up at Big Al's here in Ottawa. I first used it as a dip then added a treatment to fresh water then placed the fish in their new tanks away from the main fish room. I also added a window fan in there to add some exhaust in that room. I did 50% water changes on them daily. Adding the formalin everytime I changed the water (20 gal tank-10 gal of water changed=1 tsp of formalin every water change) for 4 days. One tank responded immediately, the second tank is taking a little longer but showing signs of improvement. The third tank I had to cull them all as they were the worst off and did not show signs of improvement after 48 hours. Eddie had suggested that PP is the method of treatment but because I had started Formalin it would be toxic to the fish to switch my meds. I would probably follow his methods as I feel that I was lucky to have noticed it right away. (I just went to see Dick Au speak here in Ottawa and noticed the signs of discus plague that he had mentioned during his presentation) It is very nasty disease as you would just have to watch and wait and hope that it hasn't spread to the point of knocking out my whole stock. Sorry, but I must go, hth Evelyn

[fishyj]

Evelyn, Is it under control now? How are the challenge fish doing?

[2075turner]

Evelyn, Is it under control now? How are the challenge fish doing?

Everything seems to be under control as of now. All fish in the main fish room seem to be doing fine. I still have one tank that I am keeping an eye on in one room and the originally affected fish are all cleared up it seems. No white blotches and they are begging for food everytime I walk by the tank. The second tank that I am keeping an eye on had one fish in it that suddenly died, however I do not know if it was from the plague or not. They are not blotchy however I do see some white (not sting like) soft looking poop at the bottom. I will be treating for internal parasites on these I believe. I will post some pics on Wednesday (my day off):)

[Eddie]

Everything seems to be under control as of now. All fish in the main fish room seem to be doing fine. I still have one tank that I am keeping an eye on in one room and the originally affected fish are all cleared up it seems. No white blotches and they are begging for food everytime I walk by the tank. The second tank that I am keeping an eye on had one fish in it that suddenly died, however I do not know if it was from the plague or not. They are not blotchy however I do see some white (not sting like) soft looking poop at the bottom. I will be treating for internal parasites on these I believe. I will post some pics on Wednesday (my day off):)

Hopefully it blows over with no more losses Evelyn. Fingers crossed over here in Japan. Take care and you've been doing excellent job at keeping things under control.

Take care,

Eddie

[forrest]

hi Evelyn,
glad to hear that your fishes r getting better now.
just my opinion here, since u doubt that it was maybe a plague on the new fishes, treat the fishes which is already recover with another course of antibiotic for a period of 5-7 days , best if u can do it to those in the other room too....then take one test fish from the other room n mix it with the new fishes n observe, if the fishes r fine after 2 weeks of mixing, they should be no problem.

all the best.


best rgds,
forrest.

[2075turner]

hi Evelyn,
glad to hear that your fishes r getting better now.
just my opinion here, since u doubt that it was maybe a plague on the new fishes, treat the fishes which is already recover with another course of antibiotic for a period of 5-7 days , best if u can do it to those in the other room too....then take one test fish from the other room n mix it with the new fishes n observe, if the fishes r fine after 2 weeks of mixing, they should be no problem.

all the best.


best rgds,
forrest.

Thanks Forrest for your imput as to how to reintroduce these fish back into my fish room. I had planned on keeping them in the QT tank for another couple of weeks then adding them back in but I was scared of what the outcome would be if any. Although I feel confident they are well, I still wonder. I will treat the hole bunch as a preventative. One question though, what medication do you recommend for the main fish room that doesn't have signs? As I mentioned before I used formalin 3 on the sick fish...should I use that again? Thank you again, Evelyn:)

[forrest]

hi Evelyn,
here is just my opinion n there maybe some other way to do it different with mine.
if i were u, i will just do this step by step....

1) use any type of med for external diseases to make sure the external of the fishes or water r clean.

2) use just salt for 2 day

3) any type of antibiotic u r having in hand, u dont have to spend extra money for new meds cos this is just a preventation course, unless those in hand dont work well with your fishes or the new ones.

if u r bringing test fish from out source u may need to do the same course to the test fish b4 u introduce them to the new fishes that ve been sick n recovered. also it needs about 2 weeks min as QT b4 u introduce the test to others.

best rgds,
forrest.

[2075turner]

hi Evelyn,
here is just my opinion n there maybe some other way to do it different with mine.
if i were u, i will just do this step by step....

1) use any type of med for external diseases to make sure the external of the fishes or water r clean.

2) use just salt for 2 day

3) any type of antibiotic u r having in hand, u dont have to spend extra money for new meds cos this is just a preventation course, unless those in hand dont work well with your fishes or the new ones.

if u r bringing test fish from out source u may need to do the same course to the test fish b4 u introduce them to the new fishes that ve been sick n recovered. also it needs about 2 weeks min as QT b4 u introduce the test to others.

best rgds,
forrest.

Hi Forrest

Thank you again for your advise. I will follow this method of medication for 2 weeks and keep the fish in QT for 4 weeks then try introducing the new fish. I will let you know how things go.....:)

[MRQuad]

hi evelyn,

hope all of the fish are doing fine.. goodluck!

[randy@itfiredup.com]

Discus Plague sucks, but then I talked to a LFS Gold's Aquarium and they know exactly what to do. Discus plague is not different from a cold in humans. The first time I had it in my tanks, didn't know what to do. So, I used Seachem Metro and within 3 days the fish should start eating and getting better at a very high temperature of 32 degrees celcius or higher. It is air borne, and you will not escape infection if the tanks are in the same building. The key is to catch it early. Raise the temperature really high, if you can maintain 33-34 that would be excellent. Do not overdose with antibiotics, as many can be lethal to even healthy cells. Take out the carbon, and only leave bio foam or pellets in the filter. Put 2 tbsp of salt for every 10 gallons of water and maintain. Be very careful with temperature, as this stresses the fish and will kill tanks mates. I use to do salt baths on Discus, but that is really stressful on the fish. If you do not use Metro, buy 3 days of General Cure, and add 3 days of metro all at once. On the second day, make sure to change 50% water, and maintain high temperature. Try to keep lighting to the minimum as to not stress the fish. They will turn very dark, and pigeon strains seem to not be sick but are very sick. I always keep 3 days of both medications on hand. You will get finrot and cloudy eyes, but once they heal, the fins and eyes will heal extremely quickly. Again this is a air borne virus that can survive on water droplets. A PhD did some tests by putting fluids through microfilters that filter everything except viruses, and infected a clean tank of fish. Instant infection within 2 days. I have used microfilters before and they are excellent for proving what the contaminating agent is. The secondary infection is what kills the fish. The discus will look extremely sick, but be patient, they will also become disoriented, just turn off the light and give them time to heal. They will seem to flip belly up and lay flat on the bottom. Just like humans when you have an extremely terrible cold. TTYL.