Discus with cloudy eye

[Pellington]

Hi all,

One of my discus has a cloudy eye (just one eye) and is breathing slightly faster than normal. I have tried to complete the questionnaire as best as possible. Welcome any help! Thanks,

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

One cloudy eye and slightly faster than usual breathing. This particular fish is fairly new, only had him/her for 1 week. I honestly can't say whether the fish arrived like this, it's possible that i missed it at first as the cloudiness is not massively noticeable

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).

Mainly just the above i.e. cloudy eye and faster breathing. Colouring seems OK, perhaps a fraction darker than normal, but not massively different.

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

Nothing yet, coming here for advise on best course of action


Tank/Water

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

300L, 4 months old. 11 discus all roughly 3.5-4". School of Cardinals (20), 3 x yoyo loach and some amano shrimp. All other inhabitants absolutely fine

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

50% weekly. Last water change on Tuesday evening (i.e. <48 hrs ago)

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

4 months, fine white sand on the base, 1 inch deep.

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?

MICROBE-LIFT Xtreme water conditioner, added to bucket with new water prior to adding to tank. Instructions state to use 10ml per 100 litres of water. I change 150L at a time, so I use 15m of 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 __28 degrees Celsius___

- ph __7.2___

- ammonia reading __0__

- nitrite reading __0__

- nitrate reading __40__

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 __100%__

- RO water ____


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

Yes, the fish in question is new (added 1 week ago). Was delivered along with 2 other discus from a breeder, using a specialist livestock courier. Nothing has been added since these fish were added


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.

The breeder produces his own mussel mix which the fish are reared on. I have been advised he feeds the fish exclusively on this food which contains all of the correct ingredients for a balanced/ complete diet and also contains pre and pro-biotics with all of the essential vitamins, trace elements and minerals. I purchased this food when I got my first discus from him. I also feed a small amount of AquaCare's "Tropical Flakes with mealworm", mainly for my Cardinals as they are small and seem to struggle with the mussel mix. I see the discus tucking into the flake too

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.

Pic below, as you can see one eye is normal/bright and the other looks a bit cloudy

Cloudy eye.jpg

[CliffsDiscus]

What's those white stuff above the eye on
the picture on the left.

Cliff

[Pellington]

Honestly, I hadn’t even noticed that, but it doesn’t seem to be anywhere else on the fish so I assume just some minor nicks from bumping into something in the tank.

Any thoughts on the cloudy eye on the right hand pic ? 😄

[jeep]

It could have been a scratch that has become irritated or it could be related to overall water quality, or both. Either way, this is not uncommon and usually not serious but it could be a warning sign.

If I read your questionnaire correctly, you have 11 discus, 20 cardinals and a few other dithers in an 80 (300l) gallon tank? If this is correct, it's very heavily stocked and bio load is probably at high levels. Especially with only one 50% water change per week. The ideal environment for this many fish would be closer to 550-600 liters.

Your first step would be to increase your water changes. With this bioload, I would recommend 50% daily and see if the eye clears up. If it does, this tells you you should consider a larger tank or commit to more frequent water changes forever.

Also, did you quarantine the new arrivals? If not then you could be experiencing some cross contamination. I doubt this because CC will affect either everything new or everything established.

I would start with increased water changes and add 2 tablespoons of salt per 10 gallons (37l). If this is related to water quality then you should see an improvement within just a few days.

Read this when you have a chance and it'll outline what I've said... http://forum.simplydiscus.com/showth...-Are-Important

[Pellington]

Thanks Jeep, really appreciate the help and advice.

To be honest the question of stocking density is something i've been thinking about a lot but I seem to get completely different answers depending on who i speak to and what I read. Typically I have found that on forums there's a lot of advice suggesting 1 discus per 45L. But breeders for some reason seem to suggest 1 discus per 15L! The breeder that I buy from suggests 18 adult fish in a 300L tank and on the Stendker website (albeit my fish aren't Stendker) they suggest up to 25 for 300L!!! Clearly this is a huge difference and in the end i've landed on something in between (i have 1 discus per 27L so pretty much bang in the middle).

In terms of quarantine, no i didn't, although i have only ever purchased discus from a single source so i felt the risk was significantly reduced. I don't plan on adding any more fish but if I ever do in the future (especially if from another source) i'll definitely be quarantining. Hopefully you are right though that this is not a case of CC given it is isolated to a single fish.

In regards to the salt, do you think it would be better to put the affected fish in a quarantine tank and apply the salt in there? Or just add the salt into the main tank when i next do a water change? I guess I am just wondering whether there are any downsides to salt (e.g. with plants?) which might make it better to keep it away from the main tank...

Thank you for the link on the bioload info. I've had a quick skim but there's a lot of info there so i will try to digest properly over the weekend

[jeep]

I'm using a converter so my math may be off. A good rule of thumb is 1 adult discus per 10 gallons, which my converter shows to be 37.8 liters. You are at around 7 gallons per juvie, which is manageable with an increased water change and cleaning schedule. Add the rest of the inhabitants and you are pushing the edge, if not over it... Any time you bump the recommended parameters, you risk the bio load issue, which I why I pointed you to that link to make this understandable. On young discus I stick to a minimum of 50% water changes daily. On adults 40% every 3 days. We all know of Stendker and they do have very nice fish, but to recommend for regular hobbyists to put 18 adults in an 80 gallon tank is ludicrous! I've seen that statement before. If you have a water schedule that changes 100% or more per day, as well as a hired crew to keep things clean, and it's a temporary home because you are just trying to sell discus, then yes it's possible. But for you and me and most everyone else then it's a recipe for disaster. Discus will never reach their potential under those conditions if they survive at all!!

The amount of salt I recommended is very mild and won't hurt anything. It will help with breathing and to produce a slime coat that will help ward off infection.

And yes, always do QT. It may be a bit inconvenient, but it's a great insurance policy. You may be lucky and get away without it, but if you do get hit your frustrations can be overwhelming. I know people who have lost 20k worth of discus because they didn't take 6 weeks to QT.

Here's another excellent link for your reading - http://forum.simplydiscus.com/showth...tine-Procedure

[Pellington]

Hi Jeep, I just wanted to apologise for not coming back to you on the above reply and to say thank you for sharing the excellent links on bioload/biomass and quarantine. 😄

I have also upped my water changes as per your recommendation and have started using Purigen.

I am pleased to report that the cloudy eye issue has completely gone away but I’ll definitely be referring back to your comments/links above if I experience similar issues in the future.

Cheers

[jeep]

Nice job!!