Discus poisoning?

[smejky]

Hi all,
would be very glad if anyone can help me diagnose the issue and advise treatment.
I do not have many of the common fish medication brands available, as I live in Indonesia, but have Seachem ParaGuard, MetroPlex or others from Seachem.
Thanks in advance.

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?
Yesterday (roughly 30 hours ago), most of my discus fish started to swim sideways, close to the surface, or leaning towards object in the aquarium, fins close to the body, looking like greatly stressed. Some of them have something which looks like wounds on them, while I did not observe any fights among the fish or anything that should cause wounds, and some probably excessive slime coat. They are still eating normally - they come for food and eat, then go back to hide/float at surface. Some of them turned dark, I guess because of stress. My fish are 2 - 3 inch body, and the issue started and is stronger for the smaller ones. Possible causes that I can think of are: 1) I started feeding them with bloodworms from a different source, 2) a week ago I added 3 new fish without quarantine (I do not have quarantine tank and no option to add it as of now because I am living in a temporary rented small place and will be moving soon again), 3) nitrate poisoning but for that I would not expect so many fish to be impacted at the same time, as I did not record any huge spike. Originally I thought 2) would be the issue but recently the 3 new fish who previously did not eat because they were new (i.e. they did not eat almost any of the new food) look the best from all, so I am thinking the food can be it.

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).
As described above.

3. What medications/ treatments have you already tried and what were the results. Include dosage and duration of treatment.
When I added the new fish, I used ParaGuard. Dosage as per the directions - 5 ml / 10 gallons, once a day, for a week now.
Today I added aquarium salt - 1 tablespoon / 10 gallons of water - to release stress.


Tank/Water

4. Tank size and ages, numbers and sizes of fish.
50 gallon planted tank with 20 gallon sump. 10 discuss (2-3 inch, planning to reduce the number once they’re bigger), 4 manfish (2 inch), 10 ottos (1.5 inch?).

5. Water change regime (What percentage and how often).
Twice a week 25%-30%. Additionally, I have done 3 times 25% water change since yesterday (8-12 hours apart), as I thought it could be nitrate poisoning.

6. How long has tank been running? Is it bare bottom? If you have substrate, what type and how deep is it?
4 months since aquarium setup, planted tank, around 2-3 inch of substrate - combination of black coarse sand and white pebbles.

7. Do you age your water? If you do for how long and what is the ph swing.
No, I am not able to.

8. What type/brand water conditioner do you use? Do you add it to the tank or aging barrel? How much do you use?
None.

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 82

- ph 7.5

- ammonia reading 0

- nitrite reading 0

- nitrate reading 20 before water change, ~10 after water change

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 100% (not using chlorine here in Asia, not a drinking water)

- RO water 0%


10. Any new fish, plants or inverts added recently.
3 discus as mentioned above, a few amazon swords

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.
Bloodworms, recently increased to 3 times a day, pellets from time to time but only a few fish would eat it.


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.

[Iminit]

Looks like a cross contamination. I used rid-ick plus and salt to fight this. Took around 14 days. It’s a bacteria so lower your temp to 82. Dose daily and change 50% water daily before dosing. Next 50gal is to small for that many discus. Unless your changing water daily. Can’t see your gravel but I’d think the white stones will collect waste and debris and turn your water bad faster. Can’t tell if the blue diamond is just colored gold be it’s beak or if that’s hole in the head. The other one is just scratched. Probably from dashing around the tank. The salt will cure that. Start with 5tbs per 10gal. So again rid ich plus and salt and daily water changes. Also wat to many ottos in that tank. 4 is all you need. That many aren’t going to find enough to eat in a 50g. So they may start eating the slime coat of the discus.

[jeep]

Looks like a cross contamination. I used rid-ick plus and salt to fight this. Took around 14 days. It’s a bacteria so lower your temp to 82. Dose daily and change 50% water daily before dosing. Next 50gal is to small for that many discus. Unless your changing water daily. Can’t see your gravel but I’d think the white stones will collect waste and debris and turn your water bad faster. Can’t tell if the blue diamond is just colored gold be it’s beak or if that’s hole in the head. The other one is just scratched. Probably from dashing around the tank. The salt will cure that. Start with 5tbs per 10gal. So again rid ich plus and salt and daily water changes. Also wat to many ottos in that tank. 4 is all you need. That many aren’t going to find enough to eat in a 50g. So they may start eating the slime coat of the discus.

Excellent way to proceed

I'll add that it's nearly impossible to treat in a tank that is as heavily planted as this one. A bare bottom tank with large daily water changes along with the above recommendation would work best...

[smejky]

Thanks a lot to both of you, Iminit and Jeep. Will do my best to follow your recommendation. Just a question to Rid-Ich Plus: can I replace it by Seachem ParaGuard or Seachem MetroPlex? I am not able to get Rid-Ich Plus here in Indonesia, Seachem is the only international fish treatment brand I am aware of being sold here (and I have these two products at home).

[jeep]

Rid-Ich+ contains formaldehyde and malachite green as the main ingredients. Metroplex would not help and I've seen people say that Paraguard is not as effective as Rid-Ich. I've had success just using a heavy dose of salt and I have no experience using the other meds. I'll ask Tammy to chime in when she gets a chance...

[bluelagoon]

If Paraguard is what you have I would use it. Another treatment folks often use instead of formalin and malachite green (ich cure) would be Acriflavine for external diseases. Not plant safe tho, but is great especially if you don't know what disease it is.

[smejky]

Thanks a lot all! I am treating them with salt (5 table spoons / 10 gallons) and Paraguard, doing 50% water change daily. They are much better already, none of them floating on its side at the surface. They still look stressed / not really okay but they’re improving. I will continue with the treatment until they’re fit and then a few more days. Really appreciate the advice here, thanks again!
PS: It looks like some of the plant species will not survive the salt treatment but that’s a price I’m willing to pay.

[Iminit]

Yeah I removed all plants before doing this. Put them in a bucket on qt tank.