Help Sudden Deaths and Massive Illness.

[Jlif1025]

Hello All,

I wanted to provide an update on my fish, the medications I used.

During this entire process, I received a lot of advice, comments, and suggestions. Thank you all. Although I lost eight fish during this process, I saved 14. 2 of the surviving 14 are still a bit stressed; however, they are nowhere near the condition they were in at the start of all of this.

I began by treatment using T.C. Tetracycline. The T.C. Tetracycline seems to slow the decline of my fish; however, in the end, it did not cure them. This was due to an incorrect assessment of the fish's symptoms. The packaging described the symptoms of my fish, which was a reason why this antibiotic was purchased; however, in hind sight I now know T.C. Tetracycline was not the correct treatment to apply. T.C. Tetracycline was good at managing some of the secondary illnesses but had no effect on the primary affliction. A case of wrong medication for the illness at hand.

After the T.C. Tetracycline treatment and with the fish showing more symptoms I was able to narrow the affliction to either Chilodonella and Columnaris and with other members of the forum assuming the same I began a course of Methylene Blue(MB)Bath. The fish would remain in the bath for five days. The mixture was 1 teaspoon per 10 gallons. Every day I would water change 20 gallons and add an additional two teaspoons of the MB. I tell you what this stuff worked wonders. Within 24 hours the fish were moving more freely and less with the current. After 24 hours many of the fish started to eat once again. After 72 most of the fish had regained all of their colors and were no longer hovering around. I completed the five-day bath and most if not all of the slime coat stop coming off and the fish's skin did not look so pale and fuzzy.

For more information regarding using MB as a treatment option, this was the site I found and I love it.
http://www.americanaquariumproducts....methylene_blue

I am now on to the final phase of my treatment plan. I am combining Quick-Cure & TRIPLE SULFA. This combination should attack any remaining fungal issues as well as attack any parasites that may have also tagged along on this joureny.

If I had to make a change, I would have tried the MB-bath before the tetracycline or maybe combine the MB-bath with the TRIPLE SULFA

[Kyla]

is there a level of chloramine that is safe for fish? i have heard of ppl adding city water straight from tap for smaller wc but i would be scared to do this myself. one of my friends lost several fish during a wc where we suspect the city had flushed the water lines near her house during construction. symptoms were immediate, as she was refilling (using prime!). she double (or triple?) dosed the prime once she realized what was happening but it was too late for some of the more sensitive ones.

one reason i mentioned wc in my previous post was due to the age (3 years?) and smaller size of ur discus which i felt may indicate water quality has not been ideal over the long term. i do not think of wc as a magical cure tho... when u said the issue improved after 3 massive wc (and use of tetracycline) it reminded me of a suspected chilodonella outbreak myself and 2 others had in our QT after ordering discus together from the same source. plus your pics and symptoms matched our fish's symptoms exactly. we all tried different treatment methods and my 100% wc appeared to (temporarily) stop the progression whereas my friends had fairly immediate deaths despite using meds. the wc didnt cure it tho, just seemed to stall it a bit and we figured this was due to decreasing the # of protozoan in the tank? it was interesting to have 3 separate QT to experiment with treatment and i think it helped us narrow down our cure. it was highly contagious as well, and even jumped into their other tanks if i recall correctly.

clout was the med that finally eradicated it in all our tanks, after trying everything else we had on hand (had to order clout from out of country) and even then we reinfected our tanks a couple times because we failed to bleach our hoses (dumb, i know!) but eventually we figured out a plan that worked. i mention this because:

1) there was improvement after ur wc+tetracycline, just incase it was partially the wc and not just the med that contributed to the halt of deaths, but issues continued
2) this improvement seems to contradict my worry u add ur water straight from tap with no prime
3) i did not mention chilodonella previously because i am always hesitant to jump to conclusions, but u are now considering it a possibility so i wanted u to know just how difficult it was for us to eradicate (my fish did not experience secondary infection tho)
4) bleach worked for our contagion, i bleached and primed every tube, tool, net, bucket etc. i prob used more bleach than was needed but i was paranoid and i rinsed really well afterwards, then let sit with prime, then rinsed again and let dry. there was still a faint bleach smell to some items but i never had issues using them later. i prob would do an extra prime rinse if it was an actual tank i was cleaning tho.

im no expert tho,i dont know whats wrong with ur fish, these r just thoughts based in experiences ive had.
u seem really dedicated to resolving this, i hope they r on the mend and pull thru OK

[Alight]

This has not been a normal year for your area. Way more snow and bad weather. I have to guess that it is possible that the water systems were on over load a lot. This could have caused your problems. Either from Chloramine or from system infiltration. I would definitely ask about this. I would also highly suggest that you use prime all of the time, unless you check for Chloramine with every water change.

[Kyla]

This has not been a normal year for your area. Way more snow and bad weather. I have to guess that it is possible that the water systems were on over load a lot. This could have caused your problems. Either from Chloramine or from system infiltration. I would definitely ask about this. I would also highly suggest that you use prime all of the time, unless you check for Chloramine with every water change.

and if u buy prime in powder form (called safe) it goes much further for your dollar than the liquid form.

[Kyla]

Jlif1025, it must have taken me so long to type up my resonse yesterday i missed your post! that is great to hear they are on the mend! MB was not a med we used in our tanks, so that is good to know it was effective. its nice to see f/u with how things worked out.

[Jlif1025]

@Kyla - I had some little guys, probably no bigger than 3.5 on a good day. They were my introduction to Discus. My first purchase from a random dude online. They were sold cheap and at around 2 to 2.5 inch in size. I know now you get what you pay for. Although stunted they looked full grown and really pretty but just short. As for the massive water changes, I am not sure if I mentioned I used Ampicillin. When I moved to Tetracycline I wanted to be sure that there wasn't enough of the Ampicillin to cause a negative or counterproductive reaction.

We also considered using "clout" but like you experienced, it was not available in our area either.

@Alight It has been an interesting year weather wise. We did get a lot of snow and rainfall but after being in a five-year drought the weather was welcomed. There was some damage due to flooding but for the most part, the flood removed the top layer of soil away which allowed the water to actually penetrate the earth and replenish area. Not many people know this but when you have drought conditions and wildland fires, the debris creates a water resistant barrier so that when it actually does rain, the water is unable to return to the earth.

Everybody, really thank you for taking the time to answer my questions, post comments, suggestions, and experiences.

[Jlif1025]

I half a mind to give up. I arrived from work to find one of the fish having muscle spasms which had been flinging around the tank and his eyes swelled up. Within 30 min it was dead. The rest of the fish developed what I am guessing is a bacterial infection in their eyes and all on the floor of the tank.

Performed a water change and continued with my MB treatment.