Problem with my Discus

[pafalgo]

Dear All:
I have a serious problem with my discus. Around beginning of January this year I noticed that the fish was not eating at all and was completely emancipated. I separated it into a hospital tank and I have treating with medications. First I tried with a broad spectrum antibiotic (Bactonil) continued for three days. Along with it I added Paracidol. Then my suspicion was that it might hexamita infection so I treated with Metrotinidazole (1g in 50ltr water) once a day. I have also used ocean free gill, fungus and internal parasite medication. This continued for couple of days and since the last two days I am treating the fish with Bactonil and Ocean Free Gill, Fungus and Internal Parasite Medication. But I do not see any improvement in the fish. Any advice on this would be greatly appreciated. I do observe that there is a little bit swelling above the eyes. I do not know what it means. I have attached some pics of the fish.
Best
Dipanjan

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[Iminit]

Not sure what’s up here. But you e thrown a lot of meds at it and that can’t be good. That fish hasn’t eaten in a long time. In your main tank how are the rest of the discus? How big is the tank? How many discus? What’s the temp? How often do you water change and how much do you change? Some pics of main tank may help.

[jeep]

This guy is in pretty bad shape. Along with not eating, it also has a gill fungal infection and fin rot which is common in a discus that has been sick for some time.

You can try raising the temp to 93 and adding 3TBS salt per 10g, adding metro at 500mg per 10g and doing large daily water changes, but like Tom said it's already been exposed to quite a bit of meds.

I had a runt that looked very similar recently. After treating this way, it made a huge rebound and I thought it was coming around, but unfortunately it crashed and didn't survive.

[peewee1]

At least try the salt and the water changes. Salt is a very natural way to bring a fish back to health.

[pafalgo]

Thanks a lot for the replies. The temperature of the tank is 90F. I have used two heaters for that. I am adding epsom salt but not in the quantity that is mentioned. I will increase the quantity from today. I have done water changes after 2-3 days. I will follow this up. Regarding the main tank, I have currently 2 more discus in it. The size of the tank is length 3ft, depth 1.5 ft and height 2ft. It's planted. Here is a pic of the tank. The temperature is around 30C in the tank. I will try to post an updated pic tonight. F1227227-F0A0-4468-B0F6-360A1644FD2E.jpg

[seanyuki]

Regular salt (sodium chloride) also sold as kosher salt, pickling salt, rock salt or aquarium salt is the type of salt we eat. It helps fish gill function and will reduce fungus and bacteria at high enough concentrations. Epsom salt (magnesium sulfate) is a laxitive. It will help constipated, bloated fish pass feces (poop).

[jeep]

Dipanjan, don't take this the wrong way, but your tank is not a good environment for discus, especially small ones. In a tank that is planted that heavily leftover food and debris can get trapped and decay. Water parameters can escalate and you can have a breeding ground for all kinds of bacteria and parasites.

Bare bottom is best, but if you must have a planted tank, I suggest you change the substrate to sand and thin out many of the plants.

Have a look at these threads:

http://forum.simplydiscus.com/showth...TCH-THIS-VIDEO!

http://forum.simplydiscus.com/showth...-Are-Important

[pafalgo]

Dipanjan, don't take this the wrong way- I absolutely do not mind your comment, since I am pretty novice here. I understand that such a heavily planted aquarium is bad for discus. In fact I have plans to add another aquarium with sand substrate and some wood. In the current set, since it is so heavily planted, I have two Canister filter (Sunsun 2000ltr/hr and another 1400ltr/hr ) + a hang on filter ( Hagen 70). This creates a huge flow in the tank which they do not like. I know that they prefer to have very still water. But when I started the planted tank I got three of the discus quite cheap (roughly 15 USD per piece) and they were very healthy. I was tempted and brought them home. They have grown quite well. What went wrong this time was with the onset of winter (and where I stay winter is really cold with temperature varying from 12C-4C), I did not turn on the heater at the right time. So this one got sick and was hiding. I somehow missed it and by the time I noticed it is probably a little late. I will try to add salt to the aquarium and see what happens.