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

They were doing good until about a week ago I noticed them occasionally flashing against plants and objects in the tank. I also noticed a few white spots on a few discus. The spots were barely visible though and seemed like ich or possibly velvet. I've been treating for a week with a formalin malachite green treatment. They seem better, most of them are still growing and brightening up, but a few of them seem paler than a week ago and like they aren't growing as fast as the others. The smallest palest one doesn't try to eat much. Some of them have had white poop segments and the smallest has had mostly white poop when it poops at all. I live in Canada and medicine is hard to get. Sometimes there are still white particles attached to them but more loosely like they may just be clinging sand or gas bubbles or tiny injuries maybe...and they come and go so I'm starting to wonder if they even matter

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).

Most of the discus are flashing, the smallest one seems to have excess slime, any of them occasionally have tiny which particles or bubbles on their skin, fins or slime coat, white poop segments in most of them and white poop exclusively on the littlest one, smallest one not eating and pale and timid. I'm worried about the smallest one not eating and not looking great and I'm worried about the flashing all around. If it weren't for those two things I wouldn't really be worried about anything else.

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

I've been doing a 40% water change and then treating with Pond Microbe Lift Broad Spectrum Disease Treatment (formalin and malachite green) every night since Monday. I'm not planning to do it tonight since it seems to stress them out and if they had ich I think it should've been gone by now. They do seem a bit better, but it may have just been the ample water changes.


Tank/Water

4. Tank size and ages, numbers and sizes of fish.
- 1 L204 Pleco >3years old, long term resident
- 1 Gold Nugget Pleco >3 years old, long term resident
- 6 Discus ~4 months old, added October 1st

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

I added the discus recently and I've been figuring out what is best. I have been doing at least 50% twice per week. For the past week I've been doing 40% daily.

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

My tank has been running continually since 2007. It has changed over the years. Substrate was changed in September, it is sand and it should be 2" deep but my plecos make mountains so I'm continually fixing it. I almost always use sand in my tanks, I gently move it to ensure nothing is building up in it. The plecos do spray the discus with it a bit with their tails.

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

No, and my tank pH is pretty consistent with my tap pH.

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

I use Prime and I add it as I start putting water in with my python.

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 ____84F

- ph _____ 7.6

- ammonia reading ____ 0ppm

- nitrite reading ____ 0ppm

- nitrate reading ____ 0-5ppm

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.

- municipal water ____ I use municipal water, I got my discus from a local breeder and they were raised in municipal water.

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

New plants added a few days before they started flashing

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.

3 times per day beefheart mix from a local discus person and frozen brine/mysis shrimp, but today I started trying to feed them flake that contains metro - they don't want it, they are trying to eat black beard algae off the filter intake instead

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.

Here is a link to videos I took today. Please let me know if you need anything else. The difference in their colours and sizes is bothering me. Up till the past week they've all been roughly the same size and colour.

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/0x2cygcp3...HxtjwCjLa?dl=0