Bump grew on missing scale - Parasite or Bacterial?

[undel]

I waited an extra day before doing my water change for the PH swing results. So no water has been changed in 48 hours. I observed that the leopard is shedding his slime coat again with no recent water change to agitate him. Nitrites and ammonia are reading 0. I was really sorta hoping I wasn't aware of a mini cycle going on. That would have been such an easy solution. :-/

So he has a pimple, is shedding slime coat, is not eating well, and is clamping his fins.

I'll have that 72 gallon cleaned out tomorrow when I get some time this weekend.

[undel]

I have some updates.

I got all the buckets I had on hand, and started aging as much water as they would hold to see if it would make a difference.
I started doing a 40% water change instead, as that allowed me to do 50% aged water (all I can hold) and 50% tap to refill.
Something in the social dynamic changed, and the leopard is being picked on less.
My order of freeze dried blackworms arrived, and everyone is eating them. Everyone, including the leopard, and my last hold-out.
I added purigen to my canister filter.


I don't know what did it, or if it was just time needed for the leopard to bounce back, but something has him acting a lot better. He still clamps if the dominant discus comes his way, but he's not clamping all the time anymore and holds his fins high when its feeding time. The bump is looking better, though not completely gone. His appetite is back, and he's gotten a few mouthfuls of blackworms every feeding. He does hang out on his own more than the others do, but he's not always alone.


I'm not gonna say that he's at 100%, because he still does clamp, the bump is still there, and he's not as bold with eating as the others, but I feel a lot better about his prospects.

I got my community tank cleared out today, but I'm not going to move any of the discus since they seem to be on the mend, I don't want to add the stress of a move, and I really do want them in the planted tank if they'll be healthy in it. (if this continues to be a problem, I will gut everything... I want healthy fish.) But if all is sorta going well, I do enjoy the plants and cleanup crew quite a bit!

Thanks to everyone for the advice! This forum is such a great resource. It's made taking care of these fish a lot less daunting with all this good advice here!

[undel]

And update several months later: Everyone is doing great.

I count myself very lucky that my plop-into-the-community-tank fiasco didn't result in any casualties. Lesson learned on that one.

Thanks again for all the great advice here in the forum.