Sick Discus- Frayed white fins. Not eating.

[Con-07]

1. Please explain the problems with your fish. When did you notice the problems and did anything unusual happen that you think started them?

Noticed last Monday one of my fish started darting and then rubbing on the airline tubing.

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).

Darting and then rubbing on airline tubing. Then noticed one of my others doing this as well. Stopped eating.

Started Prazipro on Thursday night. Salt, one tsp every 10 gallons.


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

None.


Tank/Water

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

60 gallon bare bottom quarantine tank. 6 discus 4-5 inches big.


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

50-75% daily.


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

3 months. Bare bottom. Aged filter media.


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

Yes. 24 hours. No PH swing has been happening.


8. What type/brand water conditioner do you use? Do you add it to the tank or aging barrel? How much do you use?

Prime. One capful added to 46 gallon trash can 15 minutes before water change takes place.


9. 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 __85___

- ph ___6.5__

- ammonia reading ___0_

- nitrite reading ___0_

- nitrate reading __0__

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 __x__

- RO water ____


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

No.


11. 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.

Freeze dried blackworms from Al.
Freeze dried bloodworms.
San Francisco Frozen Beefheart.
Hans Discus Flakes.
Frozen Brine Shrimp.
Feed above variety of foods. 3 times per day.

I am new to Discus but have kept a variety of fish over the years including saltwater. I received these fish a month ago from a sponsor on the board here. All fish arrived in perfect condition and ate great. About 2 weeks in the smaller carnation turquoise started to get bullied and stopped eating. I pulled them from the tank and put them in another one. Then the blue Diamond started to flash and scratch, followed by another one of the fish. I pulled the carnation turquoise from the other tank and am now treating both tanks with Prazipro. On Friday when I got home from work the blue diamond had torn fins with white around them. He is now sitting near the top of the tank. He "floats sideways" for a couple of seconds and then starts to swim normally again. 4 of the 6 fish are not eating, although they look fine externally. The other two that are eating actually spawned on Saturday morning and laid eggs on my HOB filter intake tube. The male ate them over the next 24 hours. I am going to take the blue diamond and put him in a hospital tank. I am not sure what else to do. I have plenty of pictures, I just have to figure out how to post them! Thank you in advance for any help you can give to me.

[peewee1]

Sometime the salt and the water changes will take care of the fins, gills, and scratching. It is usual for all fish to occasionally scratch. Also Melafix treats bacterial infections and will promote re-growth of damaged fins usually within a week. The floating near the surface is usually normal for discus. That you might take out of the worry list.

[Con-07]

Ok. Thank you. I should still put him in the hospital tank right. Or do you think he would be more secure & heal better with the other fish?
Should I continue with the same amount of salt?
I do have Melafix here so I will start to use that.

[Sturiosoma]

The darting sounds like chloramines irritation, I see that your using municipal water so the presence of chloramines is likely, you should be adding prime directly to your tank not your aging barrel and you want to dose for the total tank volume and you should double the dose to remove chloramines, and also it appears you may have lost the cycle on your tank as you have zero nitrates which could be the result of using meds

Jeanne

[peewee1]

Ok. Thank you. I should still put him in the hospital tank right. Or do you think he would be more secure & heal better with the other fish?
Should I continue with the same amount of salt?
I do have Melafix here so I will start to use that.

sodium chloride) salt, rock salt or aquarium. A typical dose is 1 or 2 tablespoons per ten gallons. Add equivalent amount of salt with each water change.

[Con-07]

Thank you for your help so far!
I will make sure to dose Prime directly to the tank instead of the aging barrel right before the water change.
I have moved the discus with the frayed fins into a hospital tank. Poor guy didn’t even put up much of a fight. I hope he gets better.
I just don’t understand how I could have 4 out of 6 that stop eating. The other 2 eat like crazy and are breeding, all in the same tank!

[Con-07]

Hello everyone- just to report, my blue diamond died during the night.
He was alive just a couple of hours ago at 3am.
Ugh, this sure was fast.
The others are still in the original quarantine tank still. They seem to be ok other then the (now 3), not eating.
Thoughts?