Discus pooping white and not eating

Hello this is my first post, thank you all my name is Sam.

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

I have 4 discus at the moment 3 turqouise 4-4.5” and 1 pigeon blood 2.5”, everything was going fine with my original 3 but 11 days ago now i flew back home with the 2.5” one contained with a heat source that went bad, it has not ate the whole time and i finally noticed white poop. Did not know this was bad as i am still new into fish keeping as a whole. 2 of my original 3 were pooping white when i got them some time ago but it went away shortly after. All 4 are in QT because i want to treat all fish now since theyve had contact for the whole 11 days.


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).

Not eating & white/translucent tubular feces. You can see his body pinched in around the stomach. Thin head, he is generally very shy, tends to rest in the same position near the filter inlet. He looks very malnourished


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

Day 2 of dosing general cure. 50 % water change before next dose. Dosing daily and not only every 2 days because it is low mg of metronidazole.

4. Tank size and ages, numbers and sizes of fish.
20 gallon QT, age unkown, 4 total 3 x 4-4.5 and 1 x 2.5”.

5. Water change regime (What percentage and how often?)
50-60% daily

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

QT is 2 days now with media from the main display

7. Do you age your water? If you do for how long and what is the ph?
No i do not. De-chlor and some stability with tap


8. What type/brand water conditioner do you use? Do you add it to the tank or aging barrel? How much do you use?

Sea chem prime

9. 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 __89___

- ph __7.5___

- ammonia reading __0_

- nitrite reading _0_

- nitrate reading __1-5_

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.

Tap water in United States..


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

My main display is a moderately planted tank but this fish came in sick

11. Please tell us what you feed your fish and how often. This can be critical information for solving the problem so be as
Was feeding blood worms once a day

12. 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.


This is the little guy with the actual sickness, that is white poop hanging from him, only picture i could get of it.


Attachment 126045Attachment 126045

Welcome to the forum!! Sorry you're having issues but this appears to be a simple case of hex, brought on by irregularities in water, ph and temps. Hexamita can take advantage of smaller discus and even larger ones that are experiencing different forms of stress.

I would raise the temp to 93 and add some regular salt to the tank at 3-5 TBS per 10g. I would do regular daily water changes and I would start aging your water. Water straight from tap contains high levels of Co2 and can cause ph swings that create the exact stress you are talking about.

I would also order some metro and treat them for 10-14 days. It's one of the best meds to fight hex and is something I always have on hand. Meds like General Cure and others that contain metro are weaker versions and not nearly as effective. You can order pure metro here https://www.jehmco.com/html/medications.html

Thank, im gonna have to be going with the General cure for this go round, i cant get anything else at the moment. My heater seems to peak around 89 atm with it being winter.

Also, not related to hex, but I want to address the feeding issue. You have young fish still and one feeding per day is not nearly enough to keep a healthy discus. Once they start eating some, try to feed at least 3 x's a day. I found the the tetra color bits are one of the more affordable foods and they love it. I feed this 3x a day plus other foods. Al, owner of simplydiscus.com, sells freeze dried black worms that the fish love. You can give these two foods + your blood worms a try since feeding a variety of foods goes a long way for the fish.

Thank you Armando, im trying a couple different things at the moment.

Put them in a Barebottom QT tank with a good filtration for a couple of weeks and raise the temp to 93 for 10 days and change 50% aged water daily .They should be much better this way.
Medicating in a high tech planted tank is not very helpfull IMO.

Thank you again filip, they are in a bare bottom QT. The only one giving me problems started pecking at food today, might have took a couple bites. Hard to tell, hopefully a speedy recovery!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Smalone94

Thank you again filip, they are in a bare bottom QT. The only one giving me problems started pecking at food today, might have took a couple bites. Hard to tell, hopefully a speedy recovery!

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Sorry I've missed the QT part in your intro post .
I believe they will recover under optimal conditions in your QT tank . It would be hard to maintain that health condition once they are back in the planted tank though .
You might need to consider doing some changes and adjustmemts in your main tank towards discus needs if you want to stay out of discus health issues .

Tell me you would think then, eco complete and fluval stratum as substrate. Moderately planted, 1.0 ph drop when co2 is fully saturated in the water and Marineland canister filter rated for double the tank size. Ph from 7.5 to around 6.5 drop when co2 comes on.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Smalone94

Tell me you would think then, eco complete and fluval stratum as substrate. Moderately planted, 1.0 ph drop when co2 is fully saturated in the water and Marineland canister filter rated for double the tank size. Ph from 7.5 to around 6.5 drop when co2 comes on.

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There is another thread with this same topic. 1 ph drop is bad for discus. You should sub to this thread. http://forum.simplydiscus.com/showth...nk-with-discus

Discus are finicky and unless you are really experienced, it's best to keep them in a BB tank. Or, get them to adult stage and then put them in a thin substrate, planted tank. Everything is doable it's just how much work you want to go through to do it.

I agree with Fillip that you problems will persist under the conditions you have your discus in.

This is another active thread with planted tanks and Discus.

http://forum.simplydiscus.com/showth...nk-with-discus