Adult Discus Sick After Breeding & Raising Fry

[Holynehpets]

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?

My fish have been breeding lately and I have been raising the fry. I let them raise them for one or two weeks and then remove them from the fry. I haven't had any problems until just recently. It started out with one fish with what looked like a tiny open wound on his side with a white spot. I treated him with some methalyne blue then put him in his own tank. After that, all of my other adult discus began getting sick. They have been hiding in corners, sometimes rubbing themselves off the heater, and overall being quite lethargic. They are all also experience split fins and fin rot.

Ultimately, none of this was happening before they started breeding and now all 15 of my adult discus are sick. The key point here is that all of my fish spawned and I noticed that they started to get sick at the two week mark of caring for their freeswimming fry. All were healthy prior to breeding.

I also have a community tank on the same large (700g) filtration system with some juvenile angelfish, tetras, and corys and none of those fish are showing any signs of illness. They are on the same water that the discus were on before we took the discus tanks off the central filtration system.

I've had some small problems with the fry but nothing major and I've only lost a couple of the fry since seperating them from their parents.

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).

Not eating, fin rot, fin clamping, hiding/clustering in corners of the tank, small white round growths on the tips of the dorsal fins (some fish, but not all), rubbing on heater (some fish), look like they are hiding in the corner and leaning against the bottom of a plant pot, there looks like there is some white mucus peeling off (like a sunburn for a person where skin peels of after)

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

We've tried methalyne blue baths and malachite green as baths for both as directed by the manufautuer, one wee apart from one another. We have some salt in the tank now.

Tank/Water

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

5 different 90 gallon tanks, with just 2-5 fish per tank while they were breeding.

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

25% everyday in the beginning when we first took them off the central filtration system, now it is at 50% each day.

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

Bare bottom, filtration system/tanks have been running for a year

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

Yes - 24-48 hours. No ph swing

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 - add it to the aging barrel with the recommended dose for 50g as that is the size of the barrel.

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 ___86 F__

- ph __6 - I have a ph controller to maintain that at all times. Now that the fish are not spawning, we've slowly raised the ph to 7___

- ammonia reading _0___

- nitrite reading _0___

- nitrate reading __-__

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__ - water in our city is soft and is consistantly at 50 tds

- RO water _x___


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.

Vitimin enriched beefheart 2x daily

12. 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.

Photos are below. The photos i have right now aren't great and I will try to upload more next time I check on them.

[Holynehpets]

discus one.jpgdiscus2.jpgdiscus.jpgdiscus3.jpgdiscus4.jpg

[Holynehpets]

A better photo. We noticed that fins are really red and so is nose as well.

two.jpg

[peewee1]

Red fin red nose could be a bacterial infection. Kanamyacin would be a medication for this. But don't do anything until a few others opinion on this first. Here is a quote from Kenny at Kenny's Discus, "The Red Markings ...on the ACP, is quite commonly seen on gold/white base color strains such as Albinos, Red Whites, Yellow Whites, Red Melons, Snow Whites, Pigeons, etc...some think it has to do with the blood vessels in that area and usually it looks more pronounced after they have their meals but the red color does not show as much beforehand. Some also think it has to do with infection but only if your fish are showing symptoms that they are sick."

[Second Hand Pat]

No sure where to start. When all the fish were on the central system were any new fish added? I am wondering about possible cross contamination? Where is the ph controller? Is it on the tank(s) where the discus are. Wondering if you had a possible ph crash. Are all the sick discus in one tank together? Are there any meds on the water now?
Pat

[bluelagoon]

Does your water source use chlorine or chloramine? Reason I'm asking is that your putting the Prime in the aging barrel during aging. If your water source is using chlorine, it shouldn't matter but if chloramines are used you're doing it wrong. Just thought I'd throw that in there.

[Holynehpets]

Hey Bluelagoon,

Thanks for your input. Our water source is chlorine only.

[jeep]

Normally I would suggest a high dose of salt for this situation, but I recently had a similar issue and salt alone wouldn't quite make it disappear. I ran a treatment of Furan 2 and it cleared up nicely. The fin damage on your fish may require a little trimming to regrow. Pat did this recently and it turned out very nice!

[Holynehpets]

Hello Pat,

The PH controller is on the main central filtration system (which is 4x 50-gallon barrels,)
- 1 barrel is full of K1 media
-1 barrel is full of sponges separated into 3 compartments and washed thoroughly weekly

When the fish started getting sick I took them off the system.
And suspected flukes so treated with Prazipro
- saw slight improvement in tank #3

but no change in tanks #1, #5 & #6.

In-tank #1 discus have severed fin and tail rot, no appetite and hide at the water surface
- don't see increased breathing or gill inflammation
- both fish clamping

- treated with firstly malachite green then eventually methylene blue then finally praxi pro (all spaced over a several week periods)
- this treatment plan applies to all tanks basically

tank #5
- can see grey/white/purple 'mucus' on the orange melons
- some fish clamping (not all)
-1 fish hiding in the corner near the surface
-prazipro no effect
- when added clean water saw the 'white mucus' spread across the melons
- blue snakeskin is extremely dark, with the same issue on skin
-looks like white peeled sunburnt skin (on humans)
- no appetite
-some white fungal can be seen on the dorsal fins of fish
-methylene blue / malachite green - no effect

tank #6
- 1 fish (melon) is breathing heavily, and 'rests' against a plant pot or near the bottom of the tank, clamping, very heavy breathing
- other 3 fish seemed ok, but now a male snakeskin is also seeming to 'rest' near the bottom of the tank
- when the resting fish see me coming to the tank they are able to swim away without problem but when i leave i see them return to bottom of tank.
- sometimes the snakeskin will hide near the surface in a corner

i have a tank with fry (3 separate spawns from different parents) that I can see 'rubbing' against objects inside the tank, and they were 'clumping' together at night when the blue light comes on into a 'mass of discus fry', when the light comes back on they separate out, but a significant number rub against things
- treated with prazipro, - stopped clumping initially, but after a couple of water changes later (due to rising ammonia levels) clumping at night has returned
- also treated the tank with malachite green - initially seemed to have positive effects like the prazi but problems returned after water changes

I am getting a microscope today so will take swabs and samples to see if I can identify the culprit. but again any thoughts and advice are greatly appreciated from everyone.


Regards,

Steve

IMG_2330.jpgIMG_2331.jpgIMG_2332.jpgIMG_2333.jpg

[Holynehpets]

Hello All,

Another aspect that I had not considered is the fact that I have found flying ants in a couple of my tanks recently. My fish room is in the basement and flying ants have recently been haching and come through the walls. I appreciate their is a possibility of the insect acting as a vector for a pathogen but is this actually likely? Surely any pathogen on the insect would not have the same ecological niche as in the water or on a discus fish?

Steve

[CliffsDiscus]

Sounds like your breeding pair was stress causing a break down of their immunity system, and since the pair were in a central system the disease
spread to the rest. This virus stays for the life of the fish like the herpes virus. Suggestion would to bring the ph down to below 6 to cut bacterial count, clean of the sides of all tanks of excess slime.

Cliff

[Disgirl]

Hello All,

Another aspect that I had not considered is the fact that I have found flying ants in a couple of my tanks recently. My fish room is in the basement and flying ants have recently been haching and come through the walls. I appreciate their is a possibility of the insect acting as a vector for a pathogen but is this actually likely? Surely any pathogen on the insect would not have the same ecological niche as in the water or on a discus fish?

Steve

Sounds like termites, they do what you describe. Better check on that, they can do a lot of damage to a house. Hope you can save your fish.
Barb

[bluelagoon]

One barrel is full of K1 media and the other sponges. What is your rationale for putting it in your aging barrels?