Should I medicate?

[rickztahone]

Problem

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 received 5 discus on May 13th. Initially I noticed that one was breathing very fast.

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).
A few were dark when they came in. Most started gaining color back after a few days which is typical. One in particular never did. I noticed losing of slime and attributed the cause to micro-bubbles after water change. That problem has been corrected but the problem persists. 3 out of the 5 discus have not ate a bite since I received them. The one I am concerned about shows clamped fins, white feces (along with the other 2 that haven't ate, attribute that to the not eating), hiding, white zit-like pimple by the mouth of the one fish. Additionally, the color seems dark around the edges, but in the center it is very pale. I have seen discus die in the past and it is losing color very similar to that.

3. What medications/ treatments have you already tried and what were the results. Include dosage and duration of treatment.
No medication. I wanted to see if WC's would solve the issue.


Tank/Water

4. Tank size and ages, numbers and sizes of fish.
50g tank. all 5 are around the 5.5" mark.

5. Water change regime (What percentage and how often).
90-100% WC every 2 days. Only one eats very well, so there are a lot of left-overs which get siphoned after a few minutes.

6. How long has tank been running? Is it bare bottom? If you have substrate, what type and how deep is it?
Tank was set up for the discus specifically and it was running only a few days prior to their arrival. The supplier sent a seeded sponge filter which was with this group and I have been running it since then and all my parameters show a good bacterial colony. Bare bottom.

7. Do you age your water? If you do for how long and what is the ph swing.
No pH swing. I do not age my water. Had a problem with Micro-bubbles but it has been almost a week without that problem and the discus still does not show signs of recovery.

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: 84F
- ph: 7.4
- ammonia reading: 0
- nitrite reading: 0
- nitrate reading: No greater than 20ppm after 2 days no WC

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.
All tap water. I have kept discus in this water straight from tap before with no problems.

9. Any new fish, plants or inverts added recently.
No, tank was set up and sterilized for this group

10. 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.
I will post a video tomorrow


To be honest, I have been waiting for this one discus to die. I had thought about putting it in a Hospital tank but still undecided. The last thing I want is for it to pass while I am at work. I have instructed my wife to dispose of it if that does happen, but she does not seem very happy about that task. Another problem I am currently having is that I do not have an external heater for a hospital tank.

[discuspaul]

Rick,
Are you fully satisfied you got those discus from a fully reliable source of quality fish ?
It seems like they may not have been in good health when you got them, or they had a problematic transit on their way to you which unduly stressed them. It appears you should perhaps take this up with the source of those fish first, then decide on medicating.

[Elliots]

Probably will not help but why not give the fish more chance to east, leave the food in for 10 minutes before you remove it. I also suspect the fish were not 100% when you bought them or they were in transit too long.

[rickztahone]

I want to help but I can't say anything in this section.....

Understood

Rick,
Are you fully satisfied you got those discus from a fully reliable source of quality fish ?
It seems like they may not have been in good health when you got them, or they had a problematic transit on their way to you which unduly stressed them. It appears you should perhaps take this up with the source of those fish first, then decide on medicating.

Thanks Paul. I have spoken with the supplier, and it is one of our Sponsors which I has great positive feedback from many here. I'd rather not put it out in the open as I'd like the focus to be on the fish. When I got them I did notice that many were passing white feces, again, I attributed that to them being shipped and fasting and passing their internal lining. I also informed the supplier that I noticed a few of them were breathing from one gill only. This issue has almost gone away completely and isn't my main concern at the moment. I will stress though, the discus seemed very stressed from the very beginning, showing clamp fins which I took for the normal sign of shipping. The main one in question took the longest with the clamped fins and it has always breathed at a very accelerated rate, which worried me more than anything.

That specific discus looks as it is always losing its slime coat but at a very slow rate, it looks as if it has a very thin white layer around its face which I pegged to being stressed.

I really do not want to lose this fish, and I always leave medicating as a last resort, but I think if I do leave it any longer it will pass. The supplier suggested carbon, but as of today, I have not had a chance to go get some since I have been taking care of my son with no opportunity to go. All my parameters are spot on though, and the test kit was bought specifically for these fish, and it has an expiration date a few years down the line.

I am kind of scratching my head here now.

[rickztahone]

Probably will not help but why not give the fish more chance to east, leave the food in for 10 minutes before you remove it. I also suspect the fish were not 100% when you bought them or they were in transit too long.

Sry, when I said a few minutes, I exaggerated the brevity. I leave it in close to 20 minutes or so. The one fully healthy discus goes to town eating everything. It is also a bully, but I have seen bullying to establish a pecking order before and this seems no different.

These are the things I have tried:

-I have tried turning off the filters for 20 minutes or so to see if the current was too strong. It turned out that it wasn't, they kept staying huddled up in their corner.
-I fixed the micro-bubbles problem which I thought might be stressing them out. That also didn't solve the problem.
-I have fed a varitety of feed to encourage eating, including, Al's FDBW, Forrests' D4 pellets, Bills flakes, Beefheart(they stay away from this like the plague). No go for the rest, but again, that discus goes to town, except with the BH.
-I have tried dimming the lights which aren't too bright to start with. I went so far as to keep them off a couple of days. No change
-Lastly, a fellow member suggested I lower the percentage of WC's. That also did not seem to help.
Running out of options here....

[Second Hand Pat]

Rick, bump Paul a PM and ask him to chime in here. Also a pic might help. Did you have a mini-cycle when you first received the fish?

[rickztahone]

Rick, bump Paul a PM and ask him to chime in here. Also a pic might help. Did you have a mini-cycle when you first received the fish?

Yes, I did notice a mini-cycle at first. I did daily water changes and there were only small traces of ammonia. Nothing major. However, seeing as the discus were stressed already, maybe that could have started this?

Again, I will say, this one particular discus has always had fast breathing which worried me from the start. It seems like that guys respitory system has been on overdrive for some time, not sure how much longer it can keep it up.

[nc0gnet0]

it could all still be stress related. A harmless temporary option would be to add a few things to the tank to give them some hiding places so they feel more secure. Fake plants, silly fish store volcanoes, don't matter what. If they rebound then slowly begin to remove the items. if this doesn't work, then it may be time to start with a de-worming. I would try the structure solution first.

-Rick

[rickztahone]

it could all still be stress related. A harmless temporary option would be to add a few things to the tank to give them some hiding places so they feel more secure. Fake plants, silly fish store volcanoes, don't matter what. If they rebound then slowly begin to remove the items. if this doesn't work, then it may be time to start with a de-worming. I would try the structure solution first.

-Rick

It is actually something I considered Rick. I was thinking that maybe the bare bottom was freaking them out, but they never seem to look down close to the floor, which has been my experience in the past with fish freaking out in BB's. I was thinking of adding a super thin layer of Pool Filter Sand, but didn't want to add something that might potentially do more harm than good.

I have a piece of driftwood I can definitely throw in there and see if it helps some.

[nc0gnet0]

Yeah I didnt mean add a substrate, just some items to give a sense of security.

[Second Hand Pat]

Rick, do you have some clay pots or cones. A piece of floating wood maybe not be the best choice. Those fish most likely have never seen a piece of driftwood.

[alcastro]

Rick when you get a chance you sould get some carbon, just for a day or two, maybe something has change in your water supply.

AL

[Keith Perkins]

nc0gnet0 Rick - might MB help the rapid breathing? Just thinking back to when I had that batch of fry who's air pump died and you had me use MB. What was with the suppliers carbon suggestion? I'm missing something.

OP Ric - really sorry you're having such a hassle with these fish, major bummer.

[nc0gnet0]

nc0gnet0 Rick - might MB help the rapid breathing? Just thinking back to when I had that batch of fry who's air pump died and you had me use MB. What was with the suppliers carbon suggestion? I'm missing something.

OP Ric - really sorry you're having such a hassle with these fish, major bummer.

Depends on the reason the fish are breathing hard actually. If stress related don't think it will make a difference.

[Keith Perkins]

Depends on the reason the fish are breathing hard actually. If stress related don't think it will make a difference.

Thanks