Discus Darting and floating side on surface

[Abzdot]

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 morning, one of my discus (approx 3-4" and had for approx 2-3 weeks) darted off in the middle of feeding then floated on its side on the surface of the water. I thought it was over so when I tried taking him out with a net he swam off like nothing happened. I contacted the breeder explaining and he said that it's a sign of "whirling" and suggests i'm overfeeding (Which is a mussel mix from breeder). He advised I should stop feeding for 1 week to let the fungus clear our of the fish. However, after lots of research into whirling, very few if anybody came to fasting being a good treatment for the fish. So I fed later on yesterday and they all ate like normal, making myself think it was just the change in water temp. This morning I fed again and a different discus darted off and hid in the back with the original discus who had issues the day before, but he didn't float on the surface like before. Now I am very concerned about the other discus in the tank. Additionally, other discus seem far more shy than normal.

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).

Darting (exclusively when feeding it seems) with floating

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

No treatment tried yet

Tank/Water

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

300 litre (80 US gallon). 9 discus (between 3-4"), 50 neon tetras, 20 platies and 4 flying foxes

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

50% once a week more recently, but prior it was daily for a few days due to ammonia spike in early days of getting discus

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

Tank has been running for 8 months with angelfish cycling filter but rescaped for discus because I was told black, deep substrate is unideal. The tank has light coloured sand that is approx 1cm deep with a rock mound in the middle.

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

No

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

Aquacare tapwater conditioner

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 ranged between 28-29C

- ph _____

- ammonia reading 0ppm

- nitrite reading 0ppm

- nitrate reading 0-5ppm (have denitryfying media) but is still quite low for such a bio load

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 ____

- municipal water Only

- RO water ____


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

Discus are the most recent addition

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.

Mussel mix sold by breeder. When I got discus I fed 3-4 times a day as they fasted for shipping. More recently now 2-3 times a day

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.

Will provide some ASAP

[jeep]

A video would be great! There's been some recent examples of this so I'll consult with the owners.

In the mean time, do you know the ph of the water before and after it ages? Some people with well water experience ph swings.

Did you quarantine before adding your discus? If this were cross contamination you should see the problem in more than one.

I would increase water changes at this time. You may have seen ammonia in the beginning because of increased bioload caused by the addition of your discus and the fitration may have caught up by now..

I'll check back when I can find some answers on the whirling issues experienced by others...

[dspeers]

Are you familiar with thiaminase toxicity? You might want to vary the diet.
http://www.wetwebmedia.com/ca/volume...thiaminase.htm

[Abzdot]

Hi @Jeep, I wish I was recording today but I didn’t catch a video. The second discus that acted off darted off into the corner of the tank while feeding then eventually came back and ate normally.
I’m unaware of any major pH swings, but I wouldn’t imagine any because before yesterday’s 50% WC, I hadn’t changed the water for 6 days. So I suppose the swing would’ve happened a while ago if it did.
I didn’t quarantine because I simply don’t have the space but I wish I did.
I put some plants in the tank to absorb the ammonia (not planted just floating after rescape)

Hey @Dspeers, I have come to that conclusion after asking some friends about it. They mentioned I should stop feeding mussel and try some different food like beefheart but I don’t know how to make it less “messy” where is makes the water all cloudy. Do you have any suggestion? Also, is the damage done to the fish or can it be reversed with a balanced diet?

[seanyuki]

Josie @ Chicago Discus has a Basic Beefheart Recipe, you could also feed them Australian freeze dried black worms that are high in proteins from Al Sabetta in this forum.


This is our classic Basic Beefheart recipe. Quantities can be adjusted according to your needs. The frozen cyclopeeze from the video is no longer available, but feel free to add other ingredients your discus might enjoy.

10 lb trimmed beef heart
1 lb salmon (skin off)
1 lb shelled jumbo shrimp
3/4 lb cooked spinach
1 large ripe banana
2 vitamin/mineral tablets (ground)
2 fish oil capsules (1000 mg, cut open)
2-3 tbsp ground garlic
1/2 cup spirulina flake (binder)
1/2 cup high quality flake food (binder)

https://chicagodiscus.com/care-and-feeding/


Australian Freeze Dried black worms @ AquaticSuppliers.com is an online business owned by SimplyDiscus LLC.

https://aquaticsuppliers.com

HTH

[Abzdot]

@seanyuki thank you, how do you know you’ve added the right amount of vitamins? I get very concerned thinking of adding human sized pills (for human needs which is different to fish) without overdosing.

[jeep]

This is from Stu Serchuk who has had some success in dealing with this issue...

I used 10 times the normal dose of Metro, so instead of half a gram for 10 gal I used 5 G. It was applied every day for 3 days with a lower temperature of about 78 degrees. In this one instance it seems to have been effective. I can't say conclusively that it always works because it did seem to work once, but that's much more Effectiveness than I've had trying anything else. In other instances the fish always died. So this is something I would do again.

I've seen others claim they've used a high concentration of salt for a period of 10 days. I'm not sure of the concentration they used but IME, discus can tolerate as much as 1TBS per gallon for up to 10 days.

Many people point to whirling disease but it's actually not likely because WD caused by a parasitic protozoan in cold water fish. At the temps we keep discus, the proto would not survive... Others do point to foods, and I've seen some actually mention mussels, although I've never seen conclusive proof that mussels can cause darting and panic. As a rule of thumb, it is recommended to not use a fresh water food base for fresh water fish, but rather use a salt water base. Parasitic infestations cannot transmit from salt water to fresh and vise versa...

[seanyuki]

I use Andrew Soh’s Pro Growth for juvies and Pro More for breeders in my homemade mixtures, most commercial foods sold in local fish store has all the vitamins needed for fish, only a personal choice if you want to add additional vitamins to your homemade food.

My homemade food.

Ground raw chicken breasts
Raw prawns
Pro More ( breeders)from Andrew Soh
Pro Growth ( juvies) from Andrew Soh
Calcium Citrate.
Blanched spinach.

http://forum.simplydiscus.com/showth...w+soh+pro+more

@seanyuki thank you, how do you know you’ve added the right amount of vitamins? I get very concerned thinking of adding human sized pills (for human needs which is different to fish) without overdosing.

[dspeers]

I think the issue of vitamins has been adequately addressed. The fund of knowledge on this site is amazing. Thanks all. As far as thiaminase, if that is contributing, it does not induce permanent damage. Rather, it depletes thiamine which does interfere with neurological function including balance. The sometime quick recovery you have observed is puzzling though. Regardless, with good multi-vitamin supplements as recommended above the effects of thiaminase would be rapidly reversed. In addition, the other point is to feed a variety of food, not just one source.

[Abzdot]

Hi all, I really appreciate your help on this!!
@jeep I will try some new food as @dspeers suggested with the recipe explained below before using extreme concentrations of medication. If the new stuff doesn’t seem to help then I might be best putting the worst affected discus in a nano tank for treatment before applying to the entire tank, but I think this might be the wrong way with it. It seems whenever the discus is relatively stressed, then he goes mad and a tank transfer might only make it worse.

Today I made my first food mix. The ingredients include:

Lamb heart,
Prawns,
Blanched spinach,
(1) baby carrot,
(2) clove of garlic,
Boiled and skinned peas,
Paprika,
Gelatine,
Multivitamins.

A relatively large list of uncommon ingredients, I went with lamb heart purely because I couldn’t find any beef heart anywhere. I did some additional research on the difference between the two and found that lamb seems to be more fatty than beef but short term this shouldn’t be a major issue. When cleaning the hearts, I went with a “lamb donner” kebab style by holding the heart vertically and slicing thin layers of fat off which was much faster. But beef heart will likely be better as it seems to be less fatty. I only added a few medium prawns (deveined and shell removed) which wasn’t my plan but I couldn’t find any shrimp. I’ve also heard carrot seems to provide some benefits while garlic is ideal for getting the fish to eat. Peas was another suggested item to help with digestion. Paprika for colour enhancing, gelatine to hold the damn stuff together but I forgot to use my fish crisps (tetra stuff) so hopefully it should hold and some multivitamins which include B1 so hopefully this should help.
I’m so thankful I didn’t take those chicken hearts or else I’d still be cleaning and trimming xD

[Abzdot]

Additionally, I’ve noticed that the stress bars on the discus who was showing odd behaviour has significantly decreased from this morning to this afternoon after feeding the food. Perhaps the vitamins are helping?

[Willie]

I've had this disease in my tanks more than a few times. It seems to be more common when raising fry - having lost two batches to this disease. It's neither due to water conditions nor diet, because my fish get 100% water changes daily and are fed a wide variety of foods, including beef heart, dry pellets and FDBW. (The incoming water is always heated and aerated for 24 hours prior.) For young discus (< 2"), the disease seems to attack the larger fish first. I end up fishing the biggest ones out every couple of days. Some of you may remember when Brew organized the fry grow out competition. Everything was going great until the twirling disease struck. The batch was wiped out over a period of 3 weeks.

I describe it as a disease because it's obviously transmissible; one fish gets it, then another gets it. But with 100% daily water changes, which would massively dilute out any pathogen in the water, it must be highly virulent. Using chemicals that address internal worms or external parasites have had no effect. If I had to guess, it's something attacking the nervous system. In 25+ years of keeping discus, I've also seen this rarely in adult discus. In those cases, it does not seem to be transmissible. One fish gets it and the rest of the tank is fine.

Obviously I don't have a solution for this. Just putting my experience out there so others may benefit.

[Abzdot]

I've had this disease in my tanks more than a few times. It seems to be more common when raising fry - having lost two batches to this disease. It's neither due to water conditions nor diet, because my fish get 100% water changes daily and are fed a wide variety of foods, including beef heart, dry pellets and FDBW. (The incoming water is always heated and aerated for 24 hours prior.) For young discus (< 2"), the disease seems to attack the larger fish first. I end up fishing the biggest ones out every couple of days. Some of you may remember when Brew organized the fry grow out competition. Everything was going great until the twirling disease struck. The batch was wiped out over a period of 3 weeks.

I describe it as a disease because it's obviously transmissible; one fish gets it, then another gets it. But with 100% daily water changes, which would massively dilute out any pathogen in the water, it must be highly virulent. Using chemicals that address internal worms or external parasites have had no effect. If I had to guess, it's something attacking the nervous system. In 25+ years of keeping discus, I've also seen this rarely in adult discus. In those cases, it does not seem to be transmissible. One fish gets it and the rest of the tank is fine.

Obviously I don't have a solution for this. Just putting my experience out there so others may benefit.

Thank you for providing info about your experience. I still remain hopeful that the discus will recover as I haven't experienced anymore episodes of madness. I will continue feeding the mix, if more episodes occur, I will use treatment.
What do you guys think of my recipe, is there anything in there that shouldn't be in there?

[smsimcik]

This is from Stu Serchuk who has had some success in dealing with this issue...



I've seen others claim they've used a high concentration of salt for a period of 10 days. I'm not sure of the concentration they used but IME, discus can tolerate as much are 1TBS per gallon for up to 10 days.

Many people point to whirling disease but it's actually not likely because WD caused by a parasitic protozoan in cold water fish. At the temps we keep discus, the proto would not survive... Others do point to foods, and I've seen some actually mention mussels, although I've never seen conclusive proof that mussels can cause darting and panic. As a rule of thumb, it is recommended to not use a fresh water food base for fresh water fish, but rather use a salt water base. Parasitic infestations cannot transmit from salt water to fresh and vise versa...

According to this article published in 2020, South American cichlids can be infected with the myxozoan organism that causes whirling in salmon under the right conditions.

https://www.aquarium-pond-answers.co...erebralis.html

[Willie]

According to this article published in 2020, South American cichlids can be infected with the myxozoan organism that causes whirling in salmon under the right conditions.

https://www.aquarium-pond-answers.co...erebralis.html

Certainly this would be unlikely for the cases I've had in my fish room. I've learned from direct experience to never feed live worms to my fish, certainly not to my spawns.