Another sick discus............

[Endeavour]

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?

Another discus sick. I don't see any reason to why this one got sick, She started almost a week ago. Started with patches of greyish slime coating. I moved her to hospital tank upped waterchange to 100% twice a day for 4 days with slight improvements, I started treatment the other day with tetracycline and seen a bigger improvement and now today she got worse than she was before move to hospital tank.


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).

Dark, producing excess slime, skin has white/gray looking stuff growing, clamped fins, rapid breathing, white feces, tilting to one side and sitting in one spot.

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

API Tetracycline for 2 days, improved then took a turn for the worse.

Tank/Water

4. Tank size and ages, numbers and sizes of fish.

90g, 5 discus, all 5.5" to 6"

5. Water change regime (What percentage and how often).

100% every other day

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

1 year, is now BB.

7. Do you age your water? If you do for how long and what is the ph swing.

Don't age, ph stable from tap.

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 82

- ph 7.6

- ammonia reading .25

- nitrite reading 0

- nitrate reading 3-5

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.

- well water ____

- municipal water - yes

- RO water ____


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

none

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.

Austrailian Freeze Dried Blackworms, Cobalt discus flake, Tropical D-Allio Plus, PE Mysis pellets.

11. 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.

[brewmaster15]

Dylan, have you brought any new fish or aquatic plants into your home at all in the last 4-6 weeks?

Your fish looks like it has a protozoan infection. The tetracycline may have helped a bit by treating the secondary component that goes with protozoan infections....a secondary bacterial infection. Problem is protozoans often have life cycles that jump in population every few days....reason why it got worse. I would suggest formalin malachite green..quick cure or if you cant find that..seachems paraguard.

Hth,
Al

Ps... if you have multiple tanks...becareful. infections like this jump tanks easy.

[Endeavour]

I have another tank that I quarantined some tetras in but it has all it's own equipment and I haven't introduced them to my discus tank yet. I have some paraguard on hand that I will add now, i'll try find some formalin but it is hard to find here.

[brewmaster15]

How long have the tetras been there?

[Endeavour]

2 weeks or so.

[brewmaster15]

If your fish have been fine for months and are getting sick now..its probable the tetras brought something in. Its more probable if they are in the same room. Some pathogens can easily jump tanks... can ride on things like hands and arms...splashes of water etc.

[Endeavour]

Seems like the only logical source. How long should I treat with paraguard? How long do you think it will take to notice improvement?

[Endeavour]

She is doing a bit better now, alot of the white/grey stuff has come off but still quite a bit left. Her color has brightened up a bit and so have her eyes. The rest of my discus show no visible signs of anything and I hope it stays that way. I was just curious on the quick cure/formalin only stuff i've found around here is Quick Ich-x and Ich-x by hikari, will this work? would like to have something besides paraguard around in case the rest get it or she gets worse.

[Endeavour]

The same thing happened again, she started getting better and now worse. She darts around the tank rubbing on anything she can. I got some formaldehyde but not exactly sure how to use it.

[Endeavour]

Just a final update.

I have managed to save this one. 6 formalin treatments, daily salt dips and a course of antibiotics later she is now recovering pretty rapidly. She is now eating like a pig again and her skin has healed quite a bit. After a week in quarantine there is no sign of infection.

She is back in her tank now and seems to be very happy to be back.

I want to give a special thanks to Al. If it wasn't for him answering my pm's and answering all my questions, I would have lost her for sure. I had no experience with external parasite and bacterial infections, had no idea what was wrong or where to start. He saved my discus and taught me how to deal with external parasites.

Hopefully I don't have to post in the disease forum for a long time now!

[jmf3460]

Dylan I want to personally apologize for not responding to this thread. I am however really happy that you were able to save this fish from the protozoan attack that she/he was dealing with really badly. How did you use the formalin?

[Endeavour]

I used a 1ml syringe to measure the formalin. Dosed 1ml/10 gallons for 24hrs then a 100% WC and then gave her a break for a day between treatments. I did try a 30min dip at 1ml / gallon once and it did a great job removing the parasites, it was very hard on her and she only lasted 15mins. It took a day for her to recover from that but it was very effective. Only reason I did that high of a dose was the lower dose stopped working after the 3rd dose, seemed like her slime coat was protecting the parasites. When I started the salt dips before the formalin the lower dose worked much better.

[brewmaster15]

Just a final update.

I have managed to save this one. 6 formalin treatments, daily salt dips and a course of antibiotics later she is now recovering pretty rapidly. She is now eating like a pig again and her skin has healed quite a bit. After a week in quarantine there is no sign of infection.

She is back in her tank now and seems to be very happy to be back.

I want to give a special thanks to Al. If it wasn't for him answering my pm's and answering all my questions, I would have lost her for sure. I had no experience with external parasite and bacterial infections, had no idea what was wrong or where to start. He saved my discus and taught me how to deal with external parasites.

Hopefully I don't have to post in the disease forum for a long time now!

Glad to help and glad it worked out!!

al