Discus loss of appetite, appearance of stress bars and odd black dots

The white sand like particles is Praziquantel . Its not very soluable in water.

Some of the worms you are seeing are probably not pathogenic, but are detritus feeders in the substrate.

I would not treat yet. Your fish had alot of tapeworms.. These worms attach to the gut with basically a grappling hook. Theres extensive damage done that needs to heal.

I would suggest changing the diet. Beefheart mix in that tank is not a good idea to begin with because of the sand.. I would try enticing them with frozen hikari bloodworms, freeze dried blackworms, frozen Brine shrimp and frozen glassworms, anbd if possible live blackworms or live brine.


al

Thank you brewmaster15.

I saw your message the day you posted and stopped all treatments with the nematol and continued with the aged water changes. In the 1.5 weeks following I noticed the discus had a marked improvement in appetite, I also purchased some hikari blood worms which the discus have been eating aggressively. Overall the discus have been doing better and are eating 70-80% of what they use to, however I still see some faint stress bars still which weren't there the first couple of weeks after I initially purchased them.

Today I did notice a couple of the discus have long white stringy feces so I dosed them with nematol (it seemed very gentle the first time I administered it prior). I will look at the feces under the microscope tonight when I have time

I noticed that a couple of the discus are not as doing as well as the rest. There are very small white dots all over the discus, but the dots appear far smaller than I would expect for ich. Has anyone seen this before?

To date treatments tried:
-metronidazole
-praziquantel
-nematol

Attachment 138717Attachment 138718

Quote:

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Originally Posted by duckyser

I noticed that a couple of the discus are not as doing as well as the rest. There are very small white dots all over the discus, but the dots appear far smaller than I would expect for ich. Has anyone seen this before?

To date treatments tried:
-metronidazole
-praziquantel
-nematol

Attachment 138717Attachment 138718

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Are you seeing these dots move? I posted this recently elsewhere...

Quote:

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Quote Originally Posted by brewmaster15 View Post
There is a critter called a copepod.. they are tiny white arthropods that look like specs of dust. They are common in aquariums and though they are not a discus parasite .. they can be an irritant in high numbers.. they are best seen using a flashlight on the tank walls... often they gather at the upper few inches of the tank. If you shut the filter off and look closely you can see them moving around. If you see alot clean out your filters well and wipe down the tank walls..then do a large water change...

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Not sure what’s going on here. Could be copepods but I’ve never seen them on fish. On some of the Facebook sites I’ve seen something similar lately. Looks similar to ich but with our temps it’s hard to believe discus got ich. I’ve kind of past these up just thinking the person had no clue of the temp discus needed. But I’ve noticed it’s refered to as white spot disease. There’s been a few posts.

They do not move as far as I can tell after staring at them for 3 minutes straight.

Oddly of the 13 discus in the tank only this one has the dots

Just checked the stringy white feces from this sick discus and did not see anything. I’m not a pathologist but nothing was moving nor did I see anything remotely egg like at 100x

Quote:

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Originally Posted by duckyser

They do not move as far as I can tell after staring at them for 3 minutes straight.

Oddly of the 13 discus in the tank only this one has the dots

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Thats good actually .. it pretty much rules out this being an external parasite. One out of thirteen fish isnt going to be attacked. It may just be this fishes pigmentation.

Hth,
Al