Discus stopped eating 2 weeks ago!

1. Please explain the problems with your fish. When did you notice the problems and did anything unusual happen that you think started them?

One of my discus stopped eating about 2 weeks ago. There's nothing usual that I can think of aside from slowly decreasing the water temp in my tank from 88F to 82F. I may have changed the floss in my sump around that time. I didn't add any new fish or plants or decor. I didn't feed them any new foods. It's quite bizarre.



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).

He's been keeping to himself in the back and not eating for the past 2 weeks or so. Color seems ok. I saw his fins clamped once or twice over this period. Just today, I saw him pooping a white tube like structure (see pics) that look more like intestinal lining as opposed to white/stringy feces. He has no lesions, eye clouding, or fin rot. He otherwise looks pretty good. He's not bloated but his stomach is not sunken in as I would expect for not eating in 2 weeks. He's about 4-5" in length and has a meaty head.

3. What medications/ treatments have you already tried and what were the results. Include dosage and duration of treatment.

So I initially dewormed my whole tank with flubendazole. Then I decided to treat with metro thinking it was some anaerobic intestinal issue causing his lack of eating. Today is day 10 of 12, 500 mg/10 gal of water.

4. Tank size and ages, numbers and sizes of fish.

Tank is 120 gal, with a 20 gal wet/dry sump. I have 10 discus between 3-7 inches long and 1-3 years old. I also have a school of cardinal/rummy nose tetras about 10 total, 6 sterbai corys, and 1 BN pleco.

5. Water change regime (What percentage and how often).

I normally do 30-60% water changes every 2-3 days, sump cleanout 1-2 months and changing filter floss. I also regenerate purigen monthly. Now that I'm treating with metro, I'm doing 5-10% water changes daily between metro treatments.


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

It's been running for 1 year, with 1-1.5" of silica sand.


7. Do you age your water? If you do for how long and what is the ph swing.

No, I use Tap water, and prime to dechlorinate.


8. Parameters and water source;

pH around 7.8, ammonia 0, nitrite 0, nitrate 10-20 ppm. Tap water.

9. Any new fish, plants or inverts added recently.

No

11. 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.

I have been use Al's FDBW for the past 4-5 months, Hikari Vibrabites, and occassional Hikari frozen mysis/brine shrimp every 2-3 weeks. I used to feed beef heart but stopped after getting Al's FDBW.


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That’s a nice looking discus. To me this is just discus. It doesn’t look sick so it may be eating off the bottom when you don’t See him. Next it could be the temp drop. Maybe raise it to 84-86. To me if a fish is’nt eating it’s going to poo white. Only stuff in him is the minerals in the water. These fish are finicky. I keep having a different fish go behind the plants for a week or 2. Than it’s back out with the crowd and another takes it’s place. No clue maybe there guarding something:).

This looks like a symptom of hex. You're already using metro, but metro works best with high temps and you recently reduced the heat. Since your other fish may not be able to tolerate high heat, I would place it in a hospital tank and increase the temp to 93 for another 10-14 days. Any water changes should be temp matched. You can also add 2TBS salt per 10g during the treatment. You may not see signs of improvement for another week or so after.

There are also some interesting treatments for hex using epsom salts in food or force fed. I'll see if I can find the info.

Just sharing.....Epsom salt, Now for the treatment ......


For a 3% solution of Magnesium sulphate, add 1 level tablespoon (15 grams) magnesium sulphate to 500 milliliters of distilled water. Stir, and it's good to go.

Use an eye dropper or pipette to add to pellet food (or any other food that will readily absorb it), and stop dripping water once the pellets become saturated. Use only enough water to saturate the food, with no excess water, so that the water soluble vitamins in the food remain intact. Feed twice a day, for 3-5 days. (I went with 5 days)

In extreme cases, the oral solution could be administered to a fish via a pipette.Just make sure to use a flexible tip so as not to damage the fishes esophagus when squirting the solution down the fishes throat. Only a small amount is required, but repeat daily until the fish is accepting pre-soaked pellets, and continue treatment for 5 days. HTH

Quote:

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Originally Posted by jeep

This looks like a symptom of hex. You're already using metro, but metro works best with high temps and you recently reduced the heat. Since your other fish may not be able to tolerate high heat, I would place it in a hospital tank and increase the temp to 93 for another 10-14 days. Any water changes should be temp matched. You can also add 2TBS salt per 10g during the treatment. You may not see signs of improvement for another week or so after.

There are also some interesting treatments for hex using epsom salts in food or force fed. I'll see if I can find the info.

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Thank you Francis! I would love to hear of first hand results from this approach.

Hey guys- so I moved that guy into quarantine, and increased the amount of salt. Was treating with prazi and metro, but his abdomen continued to swell. He hadn't eaten for about a month. I was planning to euthanize him the next day, but a las, he had died. The water temp was also increased to 90F in quarantine. I really liked that fish. He was small about 3" when I got him and he grew to about 5" and became beautiful and thick. I guess you can't save them all... My main tank is now down to 9 discus which is probably a better stocking level for my 120 gal + 20 gal sump

When they bloat like that it's almost impossible to treat. I'm sorry. You lost a nice fish.

Thanks Liz- really liked that one.

I didn't see bloat in your photo's or description but it seems it had more going on than just hex. Hex can take months to be fatal. It could have had some blockage or an internal infection that set in.

Sorry for your loss. It was a nice one...