Please help - New Discus hasn’t eaten in a month

[seanyuki]

Is the poo yellow or cleanish in color. Remember this fish hasn’t eaten. Im with Jeep. It’s stress. Warm water and the salt should help. Hope you see results soon. I’m feelin bad for the pigeon. Also what’s FBS?

FBS=Frozen Brine Shrimps

[Discus Drew]

Is the poo yellow or cleanish in color. Remember this fish hasn’t eaten. Im with Jeep. It’s stress. Warm water and the salt should help. Hope you see results soon. I’m feelin bad for the pigeon. Also what’s FBS?

Yellow, very yellow. As I stated too I did a week of clean water and high temps. What would you do if your fish pooped yellow after a week of clean water? Genuinely curious as we are all here to learn.

At this point I’ll have to finish out meds in the tank as to make sure no bacteria strains become resistant and start aging my water.

And yes FBS is frozen brine shrimp

[Saguaro]

As a guy who did the mix and match meds a few times before I can tell you dont beat yourself up , sometimes it works sometimes it doesnt. I had discus starve and somehow live for months and I had seemingly healthy discus not eat for a few days suddenly die. This way you atleast wont blame yourself for not trying. As for advice, like others have said keep everything stable for a week. After that I personally keep higher temps, for me it just works better and easyer. A good trick is also to put some decoration in the tank, or move it around. Personaly I had a group of young fish who would not eat if I was nearby, then I put a bunch of filter sponges in the tank because I was cleanig or moving another tank-I dont remember anymore. And suddenly they became little piranhas. That and get a siringe with some small toubing, its a great way to force feed them- as a last resort

[Iminit]

Yes I guess finish the meds. Me I don’t use meds. Nothing youve listed have I ever used. Patience and clean water. Patience before panic. If your seller comes recommended and has a good history his fish are going to be healthy. The better discus bred by professionals are breeding dewormed and clean fish in sterile tanks for generations. The only way there going to get something is from you. So if new and not eating they’re stressed. I qt new fish for 4 weeks. I’ve bought 3 different sets in the last year. Lost one fish. I believe it was do to beef heart. I had just started feeding some frozen Bh and I believe it just couldn’t digest it. No problems at all before and dead within a week. 6 of my discus were bought from a local fish store at quarter size. Even they came disease free. Nobody wants to sell sick discus.
Once your done with your meds try adding orange extract to your water. Just a few drops. This has been known to get fish to eat. Something else I feed my fish weekly is NutriDiet discus flakes. There’s some garlic in them and some fish react to garlic and eat.

[Discus Drew]

As a guy who did the mix and match meds a few times before I can tell you dont beat yourself up , sometimes it works sometimes it doesnt. I had discus starve and somehow live for months and I had seemingly healthy discus not eat for a few days suddenly die. This way you atleast wont blame yourself for not trying. As for advice, like others have said keep everything stable for a week. After that I personally keep higher temps, for me it just works better and easyer. A good trick is also to put some decoration in the tank, or move it around. Personaly I had a group of young fish who would not eat if I was nearby, then I put a bunch of filter sponges in the tank because I was cleanig or moving another tank-I dont remember anymore. And suddenly they became little piranhas. That and get a siringe with some small toubing, its a great way to force feed them- as a last resort

Thanks bro I appreciate it. After meds run their course I will they aged water high temps and salt. If no avail may have to force feed.

[Discus Drew]

Yes I guess finish the meds. Me I don’t use meds. Nothing youve listed have I ever used. Patience and clean water. Patience before panic. If your seller comes recommended and has a good history his fish are going to be healthy. The better discus bred by professionals are breeding dewormed and clean fish in sterile tanks for generations. The only way there going to get something is from you. So if new and not eating they’re stressed. I qt new fish for 4 weeks. I’ve bought 3 different sets in the last year. Lost one fish. I believe it was do to beef heart. I had just started feeding some frozen Bh and I believe it just couldn’t digest it. No problems at all before and dead within a week. 6 of my discus were bought from a local fish store at quarter size. Even they came disease free. Nobody wants to sell sick discus.
Once your done with your meds try adding orange extract to your water. Just a few drops. This has been known to get fish to eat. Something else I feed my fish weekly is NutriDiet discus flakes. There’s some garlic in them and some fish react to garlic and eat.

Thanks for the input. You know stress can cause disease right? It is actually when an organism is stressed that their immune system becomes inhibited and opportunistic bacteria gain strength in what would otherwise be controlled by a strong immune system. Basically bacteria that can get any organism sick is always present. No living organism is sterile. I’m not a biologist obviously but please explain the yellow poop if it’s just stressed? Very real possibility that fish has been stressed to the point of disease thus yellow poop, also very real possibility it got sick before I got it, wether from the tank the seller had it in, the breeder or the travel also very real possibility I stressed it from the meds and non-aged water, or combo of all things against it. I got the fish just two weeks after seller got them from breeder and breeder is in Malaysia. That’s a lot of travel for anyone. And I doubt beef heart killed your fish but crazier things have happened. Al prophylactically deworms his fish no matter the source. My mistake was deworming too soon and not let fish be acclimated for at least a week before deworming and giving it at least a week or more to eat. I also did wait a couple days in between deworming medicines, Al’s video suggests several days and suggest deworming starting week 2. But week 1 he states observe fish behavior and treat for anything specifically noted. Never had a fish not eat after two days so I panicked and jumped to deworming thinking that would be the best place to start. Kudos to you for never having to use medicine but I do think there is a reason Al prophylactically deworms his fish and I try to follow those with the most experience in the field.

Never heard about orange extract being added will do some research and try it out. Bought a 55 gallon drum today to age water. Let’s keep our fingers crossed.

[seanyuki]

Just sharing..... The trick was to place an orange peel in the aquarium for 24 hours. Each day, remove the old orange peel, and add another. As he explained it, you can do this for up to seven days before you should “give the fish a break.” A few days “off” with some carbon and a water change and you could repeat the “treatment” if needed. But wait, I haven’t even told you what this supposedly does!

https://www.reef2rainforest.com/2016...e-peel-discus/

[Discus Drew]

Just sharing..... The trick was to place an orange peel in the aquarium for 24 hours. Each day, remove the old orange peel, and add another. As he explained it, you can do this for up to seven days before you should “give the fish a break.” A few days “off” with some carbon and a water change and you could repeat the “treatment” if needed. But wait, I haven’t even told you what this supposedly does!

https://www.reef2rainforest.com/2016...e-peel-discus/

Very interesting thank you for sharing this article!

[Saguaro]

Thanks for the link. Untill now I just tought it was used to cure scratches

[jeep]

Thanks for the input. You know stress can cause disease right? It is actually when an organism is stressed that their immune system becomes inhibited and opportunistic bacteria gain strength in what would otherwise be controlled by a strong immune system. Basically bacteria that can get any organism sick is always present. No living organism is sterile. I’m not a biologist obviously but please explain the yellow poop if it’s just stressed? Very real possibility that fish has been stressed to the point of disease thus yellow poop, also very real possibility it got sick before I got it, wether from the tank the seller had it in, the breeder or the travel also very real possibility I stressed it from the meds and non-aged water, or combo of all things against it. I got the fish just two weeks after seller got them from breeder and breeder is in Malaysia. That’s a lot of travel for anyone. Al prophylactically deworms his fish no matter the source. My mistake was deworming too soon and not let fish be acclimated for at least a week before deworming and giving it at least a week or more to eat.

The yellow feces could be infection, flagellates or nematodes or it could be the body's reaction to too much medication. Finishing up the current course of meds may help figure this out. The first 2 wormers should have dealt with nematodes and the metro should help with flagellates. Is the feces solid, stringy or puffy/cloudy? Can you snap a close up photo?

High heat will also deal with flagellates (hex), but the possibility of infection exists which is why high heat is not recommended quite yet. Have you used any epsom salt yet? This will help clean out the gut during treatment as well and is harmless in conjunction with current treatment.

Like someone said above, discus can go a long time without eating, but a month is becoming good cause for concern. The medium high heat should help determine if there is infection present by increased swelling in the belly. If this doesn't happen in the next week then I would raise the temp even higher. If it does swell at any time, I would lower the heat to 82 or even 80. With all this poor guy has been through, you may no see positive results for another 2 weeks... Live food was a great choice to get it eating again, and since that didn't work then there's definitely something wrong. Try again from time to time and this will be another way to measure if things are working out...

[dspeers]

I agree that not completing a course of antibiotics is a contributor to resistance but so too is overuse of antibiotics without sufficient indication. Given the lack of response and the possibility that the antibiotic is contributing to the anorexia, I would probably stop the abx. Any consideration for using Epsom salts?

[peewee1]

Just sharing..... The trick was to place an orange peel in the aquarium for 24 hours. Each day, remove the old orange peel, and add another. As he explained it, you can do this for up to seven days before you should “give the fish a break.” A few days “off” with some carbon and a water change and you could repeat the “treatment” if needed. But wait, I haven’t even told you what this supposedly does!

https://www.reef2rainforest.com/2016...e-peel-discus/

I sue the orange peel and salt from time to time.