Guidance on treating new discus in QT

[jmcarson3]

I have been keeping freshwater aquariums for nearly 20 years, and I have many non-discus fish that are over a decade old. I am new to discus, and I am rusty on dealing with fish sicknesses — I have not had a sick fish in over a decade… that timer just ran out (I’ll fill in the questionnaire below). My question up front is whether people go ahead and treat their entire quarantine tank of new fish if one exhibits sickness and perishes, or if people wait to see if other fish exhibit symptoms. I have several 13+ year old fish in my main tank, so even after I quarantine the new fish for 6-8 weeks (or more), I may be paranoid to add them into my main tank without having run a course of meds… I really could use advise as I’m considering running a course of an antibiotic (like Furan 2) and an anti-parasitic (like General Cure). I really want to know how risky this is to the potentially healthy (or not) other new discus.


Here are some answers to the questionnaire:

Questions #1 and #2. Please explain the problems with your fish. When did you notice the problems and did anything unusual happen that you think started them? 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).


I picked up 4 discus a week ago from a breeder whom I have purchased discus from before (4 others in September that have thrived and were healthy). I also picked up some Blue Rams from the breeder assuming that they would likewise be healthy. I am quarantining together, which will not doubt elicit some differing opinions. They all looked very healthy, vibrant and have eaten well from the start. After 3 days in my QT, one of the discus developed a white pimple on his hind quarters, and a day later the pimple burst leading to a very rapid escalation of tissue decomposition across his entire side (he also turned dark and clamped his fins). I have never seen this before. I isolated the discus in a secondary small QT and attempted to spot treat with a PP dip and then monitor before trying something else (I used the PP mixture guidance that I found on this forum). The fish passed away several hours later.

The same day I also lost one of the Blue Rams, which just suddenly died. I have now had several more rams quickly perish — they look fine one night and the next morning will be dark, hiding, have bloated bellies and now one had bulging eyes. I have 2 Rams left and am assuming they might go soon, and I’m watching them closely.

Meanwhile, the 3 remaining discus look really healthy! They are eating well, their poop looks good, they are active, good skin color, etc… so I’m torn about whether or not to just monitor them or go ahead a treat them as I mentioned above…


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

Nothing yet with the discus. I did attempt General Cure on one of the Blue Rams after it turned dark, and it passed 6 hours later.



Tank/Water

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

My QT tank is 25 gallon, and all of the discus are new to me… they are 2-3” in size. The rams are young too, ~1-1.5”.


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

I change 25-50% of the QT water each day

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

The QT has been cycled for 3 months now. It is bare bottom.


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

I use water from my 200G main tank. The water in my 200G comes from a 25G reservoir that I allow to age for 1-3 days between water changes. The input water to the reservoir goes through two high-grade carbon filter rated for Chloramine removal. I have had no illnesses in my 200G tank for more than a decade (more like 13-15 years), so I think my water is top notch.

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 do add Prime to the main tank just in case any chloramines get through my carbon filtration on the municipal supply. Again, that water ages for 1-3 days and then is in my 200G tank prior to going into my QT tank.

9. Parameters and water source;

- temp 84 degF
- ph 6.8
- ammonia reading 0
- nitrite reading 0
- nitrate reading < 20 ppm (the scale of my test kit is 0/20/40/60/etc.)
- KH 80-120 ppm
- GH 150 ppm


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 treated through the process described in questions 7 & 8


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

These are new fish to me as of a week ago and they are all in my QT

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 blood worms in morning. Combo of the following in afternoon and/or evening: Discus Bio-Gold, COBALT/Discus Hans flakes, TetraMin flakes, Hikari wafers

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.

I did not take a picture of the deceased discus, unfortunately. I can post pictures of the rams if people want to see them. I can also post images of the 3 healthy-looking discus if those would be helpful.

[Iminit]

For me I don’t use meds. Most I’ve used is salt. Shame you don’t have pic of pimple. Usually a pimple is stress and water quality related. I would use fresh water and not water from the 200. Add some salt for fungus,fin rot... but with the clean water you should not have these problems. Rams can be more delicate than discus. I too qt them with new discus. All fish get at least a month to 6 week qt.
Does your seller buy from the same breeder or does he buy from a wholesaler? Were the discus in the same tank or bought from different tanks? Raise the temp to 86. What’s the temp in the 200 or there next tank? Clown loaches do cause problems with discus. Great fish but will attack the food in a way that may stress the discus.

[jeep]

Tom gave some good advice. It's a shame you don't have a photo of the discus that died but I would go ahead and post photo's of everything else. Your water seems fine, but I also wouldn't use the water from the 200.

[jmcarson3]

Thanks Iminit (Tom?) and Jeep. I greatly appreciate your guidance. I am overall antimeds, as well, unless critically warranted, and I haven't dealt with sick fish in a long long time. I will consider adding the salt if any other symptoms appear on the three remaining discus. Am I assuming correctly that you both advocate to just monitor the fish for changes over the next 4-6 weeks, and if nothing changes, then there is no recommendation for medication?

My main tank is also 83-84 deg, btw. My loaches are 13ish years old, fat, lazy and members of the family... the 4 other discus in that tank actually hang out right with the loaches, including under some driftwood that I have in the tank, and they follow them around sometimes. It's interesting.

Regarding the seller, he does obtain from local breeders (sounds like different breeders for the discus and rams). The four discus are all blue diamonds so should have come from the same tank -- I don't know the quality of the water from the breeder/seller. They were shipped overnight so that may have initiated the sickness in the one discus that perished. I didn't think about taking a photo until after the fish was long gone. I'll take some photos of the other three tomorrow and post them -- they look fantastic and are still eating and pooping well.

I have an odd hypothesis on the Blue Rams that I'll see if holds true over the next few days. I have had Rams before, and I have seen breeders tend to only ship males. When I purchased them, I was told they would not be sexed. I specificasked for a mix. When I received them, my initial assessment was 4 males and maybe 2 females... one male was 25+% bigger, and he's the surviving male... the other fish is now clearly a female and last night her belly turned more rosy. They two fish today were clearing an area, and she is showing signs of egg bearing. So my hypothesis is that I actually received 5 males and the larger male picked off the smaller males 1-by-1... I have never seen them kill each other, but I have read about it and have seen prior males fight. Not sure if that would fully explain them turning dark and the one having bulging eyes that were rapid onset, but I was not watching the tank 24/7, and they did pass 1 per day... maybe grasping at straws here, so I'll see what happens with these two.