Dark Discus (Nothings Working)

My Snakeskin Discus has been dark in color. It goes from black to greyish color on and off. Its becoming a little more active with my other discus but still hides from time to time and eats pretty well. I've tried daily water changes at 35% for two weeks and no improvement as well as other things. Its Growth has stopped as well I know this bc my smallest discus have outgrown it.


DISEASE QUESTIONNAIRE


Problem

1. Please explain the problems with your fish. When did you notice the problems and did anything unusual happen that you think started them?
The Discus turned a dark color, hides often

2. Symptoms (i.e. turning dark, excess slime, not eating, clamped fins, flashing, darting, clamped gills, white/yellow/green poop, hiding, headstanding or tailstanding, white on tips of fins, rotting or fungus, blisters/white zits on fish, bloated, cloudy eyes, wounds).
Turning Dark, Hiding

3. What medications/ treatments have you already tried and what were the results. Include dosage and duration of treatment.
Daily Water Changes 35% for two weeks.
Less Light Exposer for a week
Kordon Rid Ich Plus (Was told it helps fight against bacteria problems)


Tank/Water

4. Tank size and ages, numbers and sizes of fish.
75 Gallon 7 Discus (3-4")

5. Water change regime (What percentage and how often).
45% every three days

6. How long has tank been running? Is it bare bottom? If you have substrate, what type and how deep is it?
5months, Bare

7. Do you age your water? If you do for how long and what is the ph swing.
I do not

8. Parameters and water source;

Note: Water Parameters are important in diagnosing problems within a tank. If you don't own test kits for the following information, you can purchase them, test your parameters and post this info as soon as possible.


- temp: 82 F

- ph 6.8

- ammonia reading: Ideal (This is how it reads on my testers [Ideal-Dangerous]

- nitrite reading 0

- nitrate reading 10

What type of water or combinations of water sources do you use? If it is an RO/tap/well water mix, please list percentages in the mix.

- well water (x) -Using Prime Conditioner

- municipal water ____

- RO water ____


9. Any new fish, plants or inverts added recently.
Nothing New, I added Pothos Plants to the tops of the tank (They were added 3weeks into my Dark Discus)

10. Please tell us what you feed your fish and how often. This can be critical information for solving the problem so be as specific as you can.
Frozen Blood Worms, Flakes, and Brine Shrimp


11. Include any pictures or videos you have which shows the symptoms. If you can't add them to this post, please provide a link to them
Attachment 114858
Attachment 114859

You should age your water at least 24hours, i like 48hours myself. Do you know what kind of PH swing occurs in your water during the first 24hours? Also do you match the temp of your water to your tank water? How long have you had him? Does he get pushed around by the other fish?

Thank you for your reply. I never tried aging so I dont know the swing. I can most definitely try and come back to you with the answer. As far as temp when doing water changes I try to get it as close to the temp in my tank as possible. It does get pushed around a lot when its feeding time (I make sure he gets his fill too) but I think it might be at the lowest in the chain of my discus.

Try at least 80% water changes. Doing this will be better than daily changes (every other day should be enough with that tank and that many fish). What test kit do you use for Nitrates?
This is most likely bulling by the other fish. 8 Discus is better than 7. You can put a divider in to protect the fish for a while, or put it in a separate tank for a while. If the fish gets better with that, it means it is being bullied.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Alight

Try at least 80% water changes. Doing this will be better than daily changes (every other day should be enough with that tank and that many fish). What test kit do you use for Nitrates?
This is most likely bulling by the other fish. 8 Discus is better than 7. You can put a divider in to protect the fish for a while, or put it in a separate tank for a while. If the fish gets better with that, it means it is being bullied.

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Doing 80% water changes with possible unstable water is a recipe to kill all the fish. Until it can be established the water is stable, or, he starts aging his water he is best doing daily water changes of less than 50%.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by JosephDones

Thank you for your reply. I never tried aging so I dont know the swing. I can most definitely try and come back to you with the answer. As far as temp when doing water changes I try to get it as close to the temp in my tank as possible. It does get pushed around a lot when its feeding time (I make sure he gets his fill too) but I think it might be at the lowest in the chain of my discus.

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Put some tap water in a bucket - measure the Ph, aerate it with an airstone for 24 hours and measure the Ph again - if the two readings are not the same or very very close, your water is not stable you will need to age it before adding it to your tank. Otherwise constant Ph changes will kill your fish.

To be honest, all of your fish look skinny and sickly - plus what is all that white stuff in the water? Well water is usually pretty stable, but there could be something in it that is causing your problem. Since all your fish are skinny and you say they are eating well., the suspicion would be internal worms. The fish eats but the worms take all the nutrition. You might try treating with Prazi Pro and see if any dead worms fall out of their vents, have Epson salts handy to help them pass the worms if that is the case. Pure Prazi is more effective but much more difficult to dose so for you I'd stick with Prazi Pro.

Good luck

Hello and thank you both for helping,

My Test kit is just a simple strip you dip in and read they are called Tetra Easy Strips and then I have a separate ammonia tester by Jungle. I have actually tried a divider and for some reason when I put him on his own, he does become extremely dark and stays at the bottom, I tried for 3 days and that's just what happened. I will do the aging thing today and I will have the results tomorrow, I always test the water before putting the water into my tank to make sure its the same ph, there is no chlorine and very little nitrate and has a gh that's slightly hard.

They are babies around 6 months to 8 months I think, Although I'm new to discus so i'm not really sure how they are supposed to look. I feed them three times a day usually one cube of blood worms/beef heart/brine shrimp or three pinches of flakes. Maybe i'm not feeding enough? let me know what you guys think. I also thought it could be worms so I did purchase some Prazi Pro but none of my lfs sell that kind of stuff so I had to purchase online and still waiting for its arrival. And then the white stuff in the picture was flakes and bubbles coming from my filter, I have it on high pressure so it spits out a lot of bubles. Also I am soaking their food in garlic I heard its good when trying to kill off parasites not sure.

Anyways thanks again for helping me out and heres another picture of the tank from this morning

Attachment 114904

How long have you had these guys Joseph? He looks to be the smallest so he might just need time to acclimate to his environment and get used to being low man on the totem pole. I have a runt too that has been stunted and i'm hoping I don't loose him.

I got my snakskins around 3months ago or so. He was one of the bigger ones I had and then he just got stunted some how. I'm just waiting on that Prazipro to arrive and dose it to see if it has any results. I read about it and i dont think its harmful so even if that isnt whats happening its good to try.

Hey Joseph, High Country Feed & Pets has Prazipro. That's where I got it from!

Hey Ruiner! Long time no talk, I had no idea that place sold fish meds. I had already purchased online should be coming in today hopefully.

Quote:

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Put some tap water in a bucket - measure the Ph, aerate it with an airstone for 24 hours and measure the Ph again - if the two readings are not the same or very very close, your water is not stable you will need to age it before adding it to your tank. Otherwise constant Ph changes will kill your fish.

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The test has been done and there is no change to my waters ph at all. Does this mean it is stable?

Yeah, just in case you need meds in the future they have some of the harder to find ones Petsmart and Petco don't. They have prazipro, furan-2, maracyn, metro, erythromycin, azithromycin (fish mox) etc. If you ever need meds in a hurry I keep a decent amount of them (and hopefully I'll never have to use them).

Hello everyone just an update,

Its day 5 that the prazipro treatment is going through and nothing has occurred, same dark discus same behavior. I did however notice that the bottom of my tank had white dots all over it, I did some research and I came up with a fungus Columnaris, it says its cotton mouth disease but I don't really notice anything in its mouth area only on its fins they just seem silky. What do I do to treat this and how long should I wait since I already done one. I don't want to dump more medicine after medicine but if I must I will do large water changes before hand thank you for those who have helped me out so far and I look forward to your responses!

Furan-2 is used for Columnaris. I have some if you need, High Country also stocks it. Are there any White Patches on the fish itself? I had Columnaris in my Angel Tank and it's usually one of those diseases that'll spread through a tank pretty quickly and not just one fish. A couple of the biggest signs are White fuzzy spots on it's sides (it's often called saddle back disease) as it looks like the fish is wearing a saddle. I also had a few fish get a yellow film on them, and lose their slime coat.

Its more of like a silky look, my phone doesnt take good pictures but on its back fins and front it has like a silky look almost