Try salt at dose of 14.3 grams for each 3.8 liter. Or 1 tablespoon for each gallon of water. Salt treatment will not harm fish but may help them as salt has many benefits in treatment of 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?
So I've been keeping discus for a about a year. Everything has been perfect. However, I moved homes and in the move I lost my two out three. Leaving just Blue, who is an adult. Now we've settled in and there okay I decided to restock again and brought 5 babies. Everything went perfect and all settled in fine but after about 5 days they began to become poorly.
It started as mucous on the skin and coming out of the gills. It's different in all the fish, one had an ulcer that appeared on both sides and she lost her colouring in these areas. (Was huge)
One it's like a fungus stringy stuff coming off her fins.
But all have these white pimple like spots which some get bigger and then look fluffy.
I have treated with Esha exit, 2000, the Wormer and now discus disease one. This is the 3rd treatment. There's only two left now from the new ones and I have no idea how to help them. Blue the original adult is fine and as is everything else in the tank. However, blue was poorly in the beginning but is fine now.
I went to the shop in desperation and there discus also appear to have it and they don't know what's wrong with them either
Really hope someone can help
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).
Ulcer
Little white stops that develop in to large fluffy things
Mucus
Gill bashing
Loss of appetite
Then just before they die there fins suck in.
3. What medications/ treatments have you already tried and what were the results. Include dosage and duration of treatment.
Vetark wormer dosage for 240 litres
Then Esha 2000, exit and wormer correct dosage for 240 litres but halfed it for 6 days as sensitive fish.
Then Esha 2000 and exit full dose for the 3 days.
Now Esha wormer (dgex) and discus disease (hexamita)
Tank/Water
4. Tank size and ages, numbers and sizes of fish.
Tank is 240 litres.
Pearls gourami x 2 for 2 and a half years
Catfish x 8 for 2 and a half years
White bristle nose for 2 years
Snowball plec for 2 and a half years
Blue the adult discus 2 years
Then 2 new discus 2 weeks
5. Water change regime (What percentage and how often).
40% water change every 3 days
6. How long has tank been running? Is it bare bottom? If you have substrate, what type and how deep is it?
3 years
Aquarium soil, deep
7. Do you age your water? If you do for how long and what is the ph swing.
Don't do this :/ ph is 6.5.
8. What type/brand water conditioner do you use? Do you add it to the tank or aging barrel? How much do you use?
Fluval water conditioner. Leave it in the buckets for a few minutes before placing in the tank.
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 _____ 27.5 oC
- ph _____ 6.5
- ammonia reading ____ 0
- nitrite reading ____ 0
- nitrate reading ____
15 to 20.
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 ____0
- municipal water ____0
- RO water ____0
Use tape water :/ sorry for being naive I thought this was okay as Blue has always been fine and so was her old friends until the new fish got poorly :/
10. Any new fish, plants or inverts added recently.
No just the new discus
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.
Frozen food krill and discus menu every night then for lunch and morning they have tetra pro energy multi crisps
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.
Sorry can't attach :/ won't work
Try salt at dose of 14.3 grams for each 3.8 liter. Or 1 tablespoon for each gallon of water. Salt treatment will not harm fish but may help them as salt has many benefits in treatment of fish.
+1 w Peewee, you also need to keep your nitrates <10 for happy healthy discus. The white dots are discus pimples and they happen with poor water quality. Adult discus like blue are more tolerant of higher nitrates, but small discus need lots of clean fresh water and nitrates less than 10 to grow & do well.
Using tap water is fine, discus just like a stable pH. If you haven't checked the pH of your water out of the tap and then aerated it and rechecked it in 24 hours to see if you have a pH drop I would suggest doing that. PH swings greater than 0.4 tend to stress the discus and can cause excess slime coat production which could be part of the challenge you're having right now. Also micro bubbles from municipal water supply can irritate the fish and cause them to be stressed leading to sickness. Aging, which is aerating and heating the water to the same temperature as the tank in an extra bucket or container allows the water to degass and for the pH to settle making it much better and safer for your fish when doing water changes.
Last edited by danotaylor; 08-16-2020 at 08:07 PM.