Darting Discus then Dead, struggling

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 problem has been going on for 3 weeks. I have lost two discus in the last two weeks.


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).
-Darting
-not eating
These two symptoms came out of no where and with in 48 hours the fish was dead.This same thing happend two different times a week apart.
I was having a problem with stringy white poo. I treated with metrozolimide to get rid of the stringy white poo and to see if it would get my blue angel to start eating and stop hiding. The mettrozolimide got rid of the white poo. Twodays after the end of the metro treatment my 1st of two marlborows started darting around the tank. I tried rasing the temp but with in 48 hours he died. My blue angel was still not eating so I did a levamisole treatment after the first of the two marlborows died. The stringy white poo went away after the metro treatment and the fish seemed to be on the rebound but was still not eating. After the levimisole treatment the fish that wasnt eating (Blue angel) started eating again and acting normal. Two days after the levimisole treatment my second marlbro discus started acting funny, darting around the tank and brething heavy just like the first one did that died. I checked the water and the water had a slight rise in amonia at .25. I treated with Prime and stability. the next day the fish was in more distress and the others were fine. He continued darting so I tested the water again, and the amonia was at 0. Didnt know what else to do, he started lying on the floor of tank. I was told by the local fish store to start a prazi pro treatment so I did that last night, This morning he was dead. My Pigeon blood this morning would not eat and darted for a minute then calmed down. I am at a loss and worried the pigeon blood is going to succomb to the same problem that hit the two marlborrows.


3. What medications/ treatments have you already tried and what were the results. Include dosage and duration of treatment.
metrozolimide tablets: 400mg for ten days and also soaked in food. It stoped the white stringy poo. but the Blue angel did not start eating again. And a day after the last of ten day treatment my marlborow started darting around the tank and died within 48 hours.
Next treatment wasLevamisole: 24 hour treatment, saw a few tiniy looking worms dead on bottom of tank lots of poo during 24 hour treatment. did a 75% water change after treatment and added carbon to filter to take out medication. Blue angel started eating again, but my second marlborrow 3 days after treatment starting darting like the first one and died.

Pazipro: Started this last night in a attempt to save the second marlborrow, but he died this morning. Pigeon blood is now not eating has done a slight dart across tank but not as intense as the marlborrow. and is now hiding and not eating.


Tank/Water

4. Tank size and ages, numbers and sizes of fish. 75 gallon tank. started with 8 Discus now have 6 discus. 5 out of the 8 are discus by hans, the other three are not. the other three are the ones with the problems. 4inch discus





5. Water change regime (What percentage and how often). 20% water change daily



6. How long has tank been running? Is it bare bottom? If you have substrate, what type and how deep is it? Tank has been running since January 2018. Was an new tank set up at that time. sand bottom.


7. Do you age your water? If you do for how long and what is the ph swing. I Age my water 24 hours in buckets with heaters and air stone, I also treat with chlorine remover.


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: 86.4

- ph 6.8

- ammonia reading 0 (this is an NH3 reading; Prime will skew results using the more standard tests kits. I use the Aqua One NH3 kit)

- nitrite reading 0

- nitrate reading 5-10 (API test kit, not always easy to read accurately)

- TDS ~

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.

Tape water that i age, treat and arate.


9. Any new fish, plants or inverts added recently. 1 new silver pigeon blood. last weekend before levimisole treatment. on new blue angel before both metro and levimisol treatment.



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.
Cobalt Discus by hans flakes and DIscus by hans frozen custom beef medley

I had something similar 2 months ago, lost several fish.
I started heavy water changes (75% daily) and ended up throwing some activated carbon in my filters to take out any possible unknown chemical irritants that could have been in the water. This helped my issue.
I also picked up a UV filter and started running that.

Joe

Jaybug,
Its hard to say whats going on here but a few things to start. Its common to have the fish lose their appetite after being treated with levamisole... It can cause that but they start to recover after a few days. What was the source of the levamisole and the dose /treatment length you used. ?

You mentioned most of the fish are from one seller, Hans but the ones that arent are the ones with the.issues.How long did you have these fish? Did you quarantine them at all?

The initial problem was not eating and you dosed with metro and they had the darting issues? Did they dart before you treated with ant meds?

Can you post some pics of your tank and fish please?

Thanks,
Al

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I had the discus from unknown source first, I quarantined the discus by hans discus for 3 weeks before introducing them together. The levamisole I bought on Amazon is called prohibit, 2.5grams in 75 gallon tank for 24 hours with tank lights off and tank covered. After 24 hours i did a 75% water change. Only fish that darted was a marlboro that darted after the last treatment of metro, then 24 hours later he died. I then waited 4 days ran carbon for 48 hours and removed it and then did the levamisole treatment. During the water change after the levamisole treatment was when the second marlboro started darting, 24 hours later he started doing it more and curling up, i paniced and then started a prazipro treatment. The next day he was dead. The discus that are left are all eating and seem okay. the snakeskin discus seems to have a few dots on tail that look like ick, these appeared today after the prazipro was started last night. do you think its ick? should i raise my temp to 92 during the rest of the prazi treatment to take care of it? or is this just a normal reaction to prazi? Shoulld I complete prazi treatment and then run carbon and the treat for ich? so confused.

Jaybug,
Part of the problem here is you may have over dosed the discus on the levamisole....If the prohibit is the same I have used (46.8 grams in 52 grams powder) its close to pure.
In a 75 gal tank... 2.5 grams is close to a 9 ppm solution. For Discus that can be very stressful/ fatal. 2-4 ppm is what most use it at. We have had multiple members OD Discus or severely stress them at higher concentrations.

For now I would stop all meds. Just let them rest with clean water a few days or I think you will have more losses.

Al

Good advice, just did a 15 gallon water change and added carbon back to filter to get the prazipro out. Guess I’ll keep my fingers crossed.

I think that you have irritants in the water that makes them dart , rather than an actual whirling disease / condition . Darting symthoms can be almost the same in both cases.

Al her shed some light to my dilemma on your other thread ,why your filter stalled and why you've encountered an ammonia besides your cycled filter .
Medicine OD might have hurt the Beneficial Bacteria too , that further irritates your discus .

I would stop meds and increase WCs to a daily level . If you can age your water try to do a lot more than 15 gallon during a WC (15 gallons is not even considered as a WC when it comes to keeping domestic juvie discus :) ).