I certainly did not mean to offend you. other than the original orange fish with the bloat looking stomach, did you have other issues with the cories?
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It's ok. The cories stopped moving about and eating. 2 died right before any treatment was given and one after I started the malachite formalin. I don't really form an attachment to the cories and I don't think their life span is super long (to be honest I never checked). If one passes I just figure it's old age. 3 dying within hours of each other seems like more than a coincidence.
No fish have died since switching to metronidazole. The blind discus still refuses to eat but he's moving about now instead of cowering at the overflow box. Blondie is still very unhappy but alive and she doesn't have equilibrium problems like she had yesterday, swimming sideways. The angel with the red bumpy fin has improved- about half the swelling and redness has gone down since starting metro. The cories are all over the place this morning eating and scurrying about.
Hi Heidi:
Around mid-last year I added 5 new Discus to my 180gal tank that already had 8 Discus from the same supplier, without quarantine. I'd previously added Discus with no quarantine before with no ill effects but this time within 4-5 days several of the old ones became ill with large white fuzzy looking patches on various places on their bodies. Then some of the new ones developed the same thing. In the end about half my fish died.
Right away I maintained salt in the water @ 1tablespoon/5gal (maintained this throughout the whole treatment), used Melafix & Pimafix for about a week until I heard it was useless, then did a 10-day Furan-2 treatment at the advice of the forums. In the end what I seem to think helped most was the 90% daily WC and salt.
Over two weeks ago I added 6 Angelfish and 4 GBR's to my tank, without quarantine. I don't have a quarantine tank. I resolved that if my Discus died from this addition I'd be fine with it and move completely to Angels, but it all looks fine this time, pretty sure I'm past the point of illness presenting in the tank. And these Angels & GBR's were from my LPS. Go figure.
I know you'll do all you can do, I hope the situation resolves quickly.
I'm so sorry to hear this Kenny. I will try adding salt also. I always add salt into my quarantine koi tank. Maybe it will help the discus.
Thanks, I know how it feels to go through this, especially with such a beautiful tank like yours and it looks like you finally got everything you wanted in there. Hopefully someone will recommend the correct treatment for your situation. Meds can be so harsh on Discus though, as I said I really feel like the large WC & salt helped my situation the most.
Last night after the second dose of metronidazole I noticed two more discus are starting to get fogged over eyes. I salted the tank @ 2ppt yesterday after their 2nd metronidazole treatment. This morning I have a third new discus with fogged over eyes. At 4 p.m. today I will give the third dose of metronidazole. They say if the disease is not showing Improvement within 3 Days To discontinue treatment. Unless I can find something better I'm going to stick with the metronidazole since no one has died yet and the initial fish that got foggy eyes has started eating even though he looks terrible. Any advice would be appreciated. My water parameters are excellent as always 0 ammonia 0 nitrate 0 nitrite pH is always at 7.8, no fluctuations. I'm going to add a second filter on the fresh water coming in and increase it to 8 gallons per hour fresh water coming into the tank (8 gallons draining into our back yard). Right now its set at 4gph. I'm not sure what else to do. No more fish have died. So far only three cories have died before I started the metronidazole.
So I woke up this morning and 2 of my original stock discus were dead. Blondie (who had been sick) and my red and white pigeon that was healthy as an ox last night, no sign of illness at all and even looked perfect after he died. He looked so perfect resting next to the overflow box in an upright position that I didn't believe he was dead at first.
I decided to cull some of my stock right now. I culled one of the new discus that was sick and another new discus, both were football shaped. I only want near perfect discus in my tank. I also culled the big geophagus that was getting a bit aggressive with the discus. I can't unload possibly sick fish onto someone else so culling is my only option.
I have only one discus in my tank with slightly cloudy eyes but otherwise he is healthy and eating. The rest have all gotten better. I'm hoping this is the end of the disease.
This is exactly what I did when I had the episode I mentioned above, and also with my last batch of Discus. I also wanted only beautiful, perfect Discus in my 180gal but after five separate orders received I've basically given up on that. I think if I lived near to Kenny's Discus or Wattley's Discus I'd be able to hand-pick my fish, but through all my efforts trying to work with suppliers overseas from where I live, it hasn't happened.
I'm feeling pretty good right now with my six best 6" Discus and six 2.5" Angelfish (these are growing so fast), and my GBR's. Still feel limited with what else I can do with the tank while I still have Discus in there, but for now I'm good.
I wish you luck with getting your setup where you want it to be.
Thank you Kenny. I'm glad you're happy with your 6 best discus!
What I originally wanted was to order around 10 perfect discus from Kenny's discus all at once in one shipment. I saved 2k for a year but Kenny is so popular he never had what I want most in stock (all red and select grade white butterflies) and I was so tired of watching an empty tank every night. Half my stock died after a sump failure about a year ago. All I had left was 3 discus and 2 angels in a 200 gallon bare tank.
I ordered 6 more discus yesterday- for better or worse. I plan to order 4-6 more when my favorite breeder restocks in the next few months. I changed tactics and ordered five 3.5". I feel like if I order five 6 inch I might as well take some $100 bills out back and start burning them.
Here's a picture of my remaining fish. They're ok. They aren't the best discus out there. 2 of them look like football to me (the red and blue in the bottom picture on the right) I like it when they have super high heads and they look round even when they clamp their fins down. All 3 of my original fish were beautiful and round and all 3 died so what you see is just my new discus minus the 2 I culled.
Keeping Discus has been a positive experience, from which I've learned so much more that I wouldn't have otherwise. But I'm done trying to get my 'perfect school' of Discus like I'd dreamed of when I started. It is what it is. I'll keep what I have for the foreseeable future, then I look forward to changing my tank in other areas. But the challenge of Discus keeping is also rewarding, I'm sure I'll come back to them sometime in future.
I completely understand what you're saying. If I don't get my dream discus within 1 year I will also give up. Right now I'm just happy to have my tank full of decent discus, not staring at an empty tank day and night. Here's a video I just took of my guys. Do you have any pictures or video of your discus?
https://youtu.be/_bisdL6W3c0
Heidi,
Below are a couple of pics I just took. You can find more pics in my tank journal: http://forum.simplydiscus.com/showth...Discus-arrived
Attachment 113802Attachment 113803
The tank is beautiful Kenny and your discus are nice. It looks like they've grown quite a bit. How big are they now?
I'm hoping I succeed at getting my new smaller 3.5" koi to grow in the same tank as the larger 5.5"+ ones. I've never raised smaller discus I buy them big. Right now my discus are getting 80% wc per day and fed 4 times a day. I might increase the feeding to 5xs a day. I'm going to scour old posts to see if anyone has raised 2 different size discus together. It seems like everyone has a grow out tank and display tank. My husband said if I ever get another aquarium he will leave me so I can't do that. :(
I hear you. I have two tank I love so I can't really complain. My husband does say it's ok to have the QT TANK in our house for a few weeks but the filter went bad so now I have to decide if I'm going to buy a new filter and quarantine the new batch or put them all in the main tank. It's a tough decision since I have six new discus coming from two different breeders and I definitely don't have 2 quarantine setups. The guys in my main tank are all new and will be on metronidazole. Im going to see if I can keep them on it for another week, approx 12 days total. I'm considering putting all three batches of discus in together on metro and salt hope that the medication kills whatever infection they might potentially develop. When I get more discus in a few months they will definitely be quarantined.