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Thread: Tefe Green discus showing 'Whirling Disease" symptoms

  1. #1
    Registered Member
    Join Date
    Mar 2020
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    Default Tefe Green discus showing 'Whirling Disease" symptoms

    Please complete this questionnaire if your fish are sick (copy and paste). The more details you can provide, the better we are able to diagnose and help you treat your sick fish.

    DISEASE QUESTIONNAIRE


    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?

    When I viewed the tank in the morning I noticed one of my wild caught tefe green discus was acting strange. The fish was swimming normally, but was breathing heavily and every now and then would swim around in circles (kind of like a dog chasing it's tail) super quickly, before the bolt around the tank. As the day went on this began happening more and more. When the fish was at the surface it would swim horizontally and splash water with it's pectoral fin, as well as kind of curling it's body. On this day this began my sump was running low so it was pushing a lot of air bubbles in the tank so I am wondering if this could of been a cause?


    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).

    Fish wasn't eating, breathing heavily, swimming in circles (as described above), darting, curling it's body, losing balance the more the day went on


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

    The fish passed away within 24 hours, and I spoke to a leading cichlid expert in Australia and he said to him it sounds like a internal bacterial/ fungal infection that eventually proliferates enough and attacks the central nervous system/ brain. He gave me some gel food that has a powerful antibacterial and antifungal medications in it, which I am feeding the rest of the fish that remain in the tank. As I stated above I am wondering if this is to do with the sump running dry, as 8 hours before I viewed the tank in the morning all the fish were completely fine and eating.


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

    180G tank with a 40G sump has been up and running for 6+ years

    4 x Wild Caught Tefe Green Discus. Around 5-6 inches (It is now 4 given the death of the discus in question)
    3 x Wild Caught Novo Airao Heckel Discus. Around 4 inches
    5 x F1 Altum Angelfish. Around 7 inches in height
    9 x Rummynose Tetras. Roughly 2.5 inches

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

    Previously 30-25% twice a week. I have since reduced to 20-25% every 2-3 days in order to not affect parameters as much as larger water changes


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

    Tank has been running for 6+ years, it has had various different species. Has housed Altum Angelfish and discus fro the past 6 months.
    Substrate is a fine layer of sand roughly 1-2 inches thick


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

    No currently I add it from the hose, but I force it through filter wool in order to dissipate excess gas in the water before it enters the tank.
    When I age my water the pH does not change more then 0.17


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

    Seachem Prime. I treat for the whole tank not just the new water added


    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 degrees Fahrenheit

    - ph 5.93 - 6.39 (pH ranges between these, tested with a Hanna Instruments pH pen)

    - ammonia reading <0/05 (please note this is tested with the JBL test kit so it is measuring ammonium)

    - nitrite reading <0.025

    - nitrate reading 1

    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 <----

    - RO water ____


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

    The 3 Novo Airao Heckel discus where added around 2-3 weeks ago. They were in quarantine for 2 weeks previously (I intended to quarantine them for longer, but the aggression between them was too high, I did however, proactively treat them for internal parasites, gill flukes, tape worms etc)


    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.

    The fish are fed Dianichi Ultima Krill (the altums and 1 tefe green discus eat this) as well as 2-3 cubes of Freeze Dried Blackworms twice a day.
    I do on occasion as well feed some Frozen Artemia with Garlic and Spiralina, Frozen Black Mosquito larvae, and frozen white mosquito larvae

  2. #2
    Registered Member
    Join Date
    Jul 2020
    Posts
    2

    Default Re: Tefe Green discus showing 'Whirling Disease" symptoms

    Upping this post, as I am experiencing this exact issue in my tank with, as far as I can tell, as least 2 of my 12 discus. Symptoms are exactly the same- horizontal splashing across the top of the tank, occasional spinning in circles followed by darting around the tank erratically. They seem to do this just every now and then and then go back to acting normally. As far as I can tell based on what I have read, there seems to be no cure for whirling and is often fatal, but I was curious if you or anyone else had any further experiences and/or success with treatment?

    EDIT: wanted to edit to say that I'm torn between just waiting to see if the condition improves or culling, but am, at least for the moment, planning on just waiting to see if the condition improves, since they seem to fine otherwise and often act normally. Curious if anyone has any thoughts.
    Last edited by situationqt; 11-24-2020 at 04:52 PM.

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