Whirling Disease

[Dutch dude]

Thanks for sharing!

My tanks were decorated with driftwood and a 1/2 inch of sand, low light level.

Mine did not wirl to the bottom of the tank but more freaking out. They did this also during the night and splashing fish even woke me up.

To the old guy's from the hobby,....is this something new or did this also happen 20 years ago?

[Miamiheat]

i have a fish exhibiting this kind of behaviour. it has been doing this 3-4 days. This fish is bred in tank from wild parents. I have a feeling my problem is the same i change water daily up to 50-60%.
TDS 80 out of tap and 110 in the tank, o amonia and nitrites, 20 in nitrates (i tend to overfeed hence my race with WC's). on my last WC's i was running lare and wasn't aging properly (8-10 hours vs 24 hrs). temperature is 28celsius.

how do i save this one?
raise temp first?

BTW 3 others usually very bold hiding all day. fed less today, cleaned more, didnt change water, tonite they all come out from hiding.. (BB tank w a couple of potted plants added yesterday)

[rickztahone]

From all the reading from similar situations, it seems that your first step should be to reduce your water changes

[Miamiheat]

Yes that is the obvious conclusion to all the reading. But I am talking about the fish that is already in distress and I wonder if there is anything else that can be done for it on an immediate basis. How did you "save' fish already exhibiting the condition?

[Dutch dude]

Hi there,

Sorry to hear your fish suffer the issues known as whirling. You might not want to change to much at once but I should start with feeding less and 2 times a day is enough for adults. I also suggest to remove all the sharp objects in case the fish freaks out. Dimmed light seems to keep the fish calmer. The addition of the plants is a good one and it will probably hide in the plants. You can raise the temp to 29C for now and bump it another degree next week. I also suggest to raise the conductivity 10mS to 20 mS every water change. Take it slow. The goal should be between the 250 mS and 350 mS. We have know idea about the tank size and stock level but a daily quick vacuum is a save method to remove spoiled foods. The removed water should be at most 10%. Besides the quick vacuum I suggest 2 to 3 times a week 30% to 40% water change but all depends on stock level. I hope this helps and I keep my fingers crossed the fish pulls through.

[Miamiheat]

Hi there,

Sorry to hear your fish suffer the issues known as whirling. You might not want to change to much at once but I should start with feeding less and 2 times a day is enough for adults. I also suggest to remove all the sharp objects in case the fish freaks out. Dimmed light seems to keep the fish calmer. The addition of the plants is a good one and it will probably hide in the plants. You can raise the temp to 29C for now and bump it another degree next week. I also suggest to raise the conductivity 10mS to 20 mS every water change. Take it slow. The goal should be between the 250 mS and 350 mS. We have know idea about the tank size and stock level but a daily quick vacuum is a save method to remove spoiled foods. The removed water should be at most 10%. Besides the quick vacuum I suggest 2 to 3 times a week 30% to 40% water change but all depends on stock level. I hope this helps and I keep my fingers crossed the fish pulls through.

thanks a lot.
fish doing much better today, no whirling seen and almost normal behaviour. A tiny bit scared but he swims around and has come out of his corner a few times. yesterday in a panic i threw him in a 30l tank on his own and almost in the dark. threw some salt dont ask me why i just did. I thought he was done. I would see him flat on the bottom, or curled up like a dog chasing its tail. When i noticed an improvement on the other fish i decided it would be easier to have a decent water quality in the big tank so i threw him back in. I made sure tank was clean and a tiny bit of WC (to replace water syphoned during cleaning) before i put him back. This AM no whirling, very light feeding (pellets) and tonite a little bit of beefheart followed by syphon. this is a 216 liter tank with these 4 discus (red cuipeua i think this is an Alenquer variety)about 4 inches total lenght and 20 fat cardinal tetras, 2 plants, BB, hydro sponge filter (IV or V) + eheim canister filter. that tank had over 12 angelfish that i removed saturday because they were competing too much for food and i thought they were stressing the fish. Conductivity is a new concept for me: how do you control that ?

[Miamiheat]

[Miamiheat]

[rickztahone]

Just adding an interesting quote from Kraig from another thread:

I believe one of the causes of whirling disease is Cryptobia. Cryptobia has a intracellular phase, which may affect the brain. Just a hunch. The last I checked there was no cure, however some have had success treating with dimetridazole. Cryptobia was found in 98% of 60 chiclids tested at the Shedd aquarium.You can read about here. http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/vm077, which is one of my sources for what I have shared here.

[Kingdom Come Discus]

I saw a post from Andrew Soh years ago that addressed this issue. Not sure where to look though.

[rickztahone]

I saw a post from Andrew Soh years ago that addressed this issue. Not sure where to look though.

I had one of his books and didn't hear mention of it. It may be in a more recent print?

[Second Hand Pat]

I saw a post from Andrew Soh years ago that addressed this issue. Not sure where to look though.

Kraig, perhaps in this thread http://forum.simplydiscus.com/showth...=suddenly+sick. Warning...this thread is a two hour read.

[Kingdom Come Discus]

Yep that is the one. Thank you Pat!!!

[Dutch dude]

Good to see this on top of the wild section again especially because several members have to deal with the frustrating whirling issue. Maybe out of the box thinking,.....reading through this post one will notice the best method so far is to scale down the number and percentage of water changes. Up until now there is no proper diagnose for the issue and only some guesses. Thats not a good start for treating with meds. I would be interested to see what happens when people follow the advice of only 2 water changes a week of 30% to 40% each. In my case it took about 3 weeks and all symptoms were gone. After 2 months I did a couple of larger water changes of 65% and the symptoms came back (it starts with nervous behaviour). Since then I went back to the 40% changes and have not had the issue since (couple of years now). Maybe people try too hard to find a med or a treatment while the issue is simply solved with smaller water changes.

[DiscusBR]

I have not read all the posts in this thread, but it is great to see the problem discussed in some detail, since it is affecting to member forum members who keep wilds right now, including myself. But I am not sure that frequent WCs can cause these problems. I kept 7 wild Cuipeua discus in Brazil for two years in a 80g tank. I did two 60% WCs per week. Never had a case of whirling disease and got two confirmed pairs who spawned in that tank. But I will keep reading to learn more.