New Discuss Disease

[GregMD]

Hi All-

I am new the forum and Discus. Introduced myself last week. Al suggested I post about my issues here so I would welcome feedback.

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

I am new to discuss and received fish on 3/16/23. On 3/18 I noticed some Ich on the cardinal tetras. I raised the temp from 84 to 88 and added salt (1tsp per gallon). The Ich cleared up in a day or two and all seemed well.

On 3/23/23 I noticed some white fuzz on the sides of a few of the discus. I began treating with paraguard that day and have continued since then.


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).

White fuzz on sides of discus.


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

Paraguard at recommended dosage of 5ml per 10 gallons. Started 3/23/23 and continue to today.

Tank/Water

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

70 gallon rimless tank. Tank and filter are a year old but tank was cleaned out prior to adding discus. Cannister filter is a year old. Added a new cannister filter as well with cycled media.

Stocking as follows:
New Fish:
4" Blue Snakeskin
3" Striated Turquoise
4" Tiger Blue Panda
4.5" Leopard Turquoise
3.5" Red Melon
3.5" Chekerboard Red Panda
4" Fine Line Red Panda
4" Yellow Checkerboard Panda
4" Yellow Melon
12 Cardinal Tetras
12 Rummy Nose

Existing fish:
3 Corys


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

70% every 3rd day since adding fish. Water parameters below are right before water change

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

Tank is a year old but was cleaned out for Discus, filter was existing cycles media and new filter was added with cycles media.

1" sand substrate. A few rocks are in the tank. There were some anubius plants in the tank but they were taken out for the salt treatment and haven't been added back yet. I want to make sure the fish are healthy before adding plants back.

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

No aging of water, just dechlorination. PH is relatively stable at 7.5 generally.


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

Seachem Prime added to the tank as prescribed (5ML per 50 gallons) although I probably use more than that generally rounding up.

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 86

- ph 7.5

- ammonia reading 0

- nitrite reading 0

- nitrate reading <20ppm

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


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

All new except the 3 corys that are a year old. So this is a new setup.


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.

I feed about 6x per day at the moment, rotating:
Frozen beef heart mix
Extreme Krill Flakes
Freeze dried blackworms
Extreme Community Flakes
Frozen blood worms
Hikari Vibra bites

Generally, I am feeding flakes 3x per day and adding in the others for the other feedings.

They have all eaten well since the beginning, including eating out of my hand.


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.


They all behave pretty normally from my perspective and seem pretty happy. The exception is the Red Melon which seems to be spending a lot of time hiding or staying near the back bottom of the tank and is less interested in food compared to the others.

Here are images of the disease when it started 3/23/23. It is improving, and they seem to be still behaving normally. https://www.icloud.com/sharedalbum/#B0dGtec4XJJddtT

Here is a video of their general behavior today after a week of treatment 3/28/23: https://youtu.be/JgGcLwFcrtY

They seem to be on the right track, and I was currently planning on continuing the 14-day treatment of Paraguard as recommended by Seachem.

I'd be happy to hear other thoughts as I am brand new to Discus.

[LizStreithorst]

The fish appears to have a bacterial infection. According to what I've read, ParaGard is more targeted to external parasites. Others my have different opinions but if the fish were mine I would treat with Furan II according to label directions.

Also, you might consider doing WC more often. A nitrate reading of 20 is too high for Discus. Most recommend under 10. Mine are around 5.

[LizStreithorst]

I should have watched the video before I posted. The fish look good. It looks like ParaGard did a good job so forget what I said and keep on what you are doing.

I still think that you should up your WC until your nitrate doesn't get above 10.

[brewmaster15]

I think theres a bacterial component as well here.. The problem is with Discus you can get fish that look like that From it being just a bacterial infection, or the bacteria being from both virus as primary cause with the bacteria being secondary infection... and lastly the fish could have a parasite infection and the bacteria is secondary.

Furan2 as Liz suggested is a go to antibiotic for discus with external bacterial infections.. It is a good option if you can find it..

I am a little concerned though that this may be parasite based since you had "ich" on the tetras and it cleared up in a day or two... thats to me is a red flag. I also do not like the looks of the fins..with the ragged edges and how opaque they are.

I think if your fish are improving with the paraguard you should probably continue... if its parasite based.. knocking them out will allow the fishes immune system to fight the secondary bacterial infection . If however things dont continue to improve something with more antibacterial properties may be needed..furan 2 if you can find it or in your case here maybe try seachems polyguard... as it works against a range of things.
https://www.seachem.com/polyguard.php


Greg,did the tetras come from the same supplier as the discus, and without divulging the discus source were these from a local fish shop/aquarium or a discus seller/importer?
Al

[GregMD]

Thanks for the feedback Al and Liz-

Liz I am going to up my schedule and keep the nitrates lower.

With medication, I tend to start least intrusive to the fish and ramp things up. So that's why I did salt and temperature first and then moved on to Paraguard, which is much less potent than Polyguard. I'll stay the course for now and monitor closely.

The Tetras and Discus all came from the same supplier, who is a well-known Discus importer/supplier. Happy to disclose who it was, but it sounds like that isn't customary for some reason?

[brewmaster15]

Thanks for the feedback Al and Liz-

Liz I am going to up my schedule and keep the nitrates lower.

With medication, I tend to start least intrusive to the fish and ramp things up. So that's why I did salt and temperature first and then moved on to Paraguard, which is much less potent than Polyguard. I'll stay the course for now and monitor closely.

The Tetras and Discus all came from the same supplier, who is a well-known Discus importer/supplier. Happy to disclose who it was, but it sounds like that isn't customary for some reason?

Its not that its a problem at all to disclose where you got the fish but some people do not feel comfortable doing that so I never pressure them. I would suggest however that if you haven't talked with the seller, you should. They may have more insight to whats happened to your fish.

al

[GregMD]

Got it. I bought the fish from Wattley Discus and have been talking to Gabe. He suggested the first two steps (salt first, then Paraguard). Gabes been very helpful and responsive AND I appreciate getting different perspectives.

[Iminit]

I’ve just went through this with some local bought discus5DCC62EF-870D-4CC6-9923-6E618C86BCB9.jpg2D05B8EB-AE7D-4E79-9E26-E933B5D59C1C.jpg. They looked great in store but when I brought them home and put in qt they cross contaminated each other. I started with rid-ich and salt and they healed. Then I for got to plug the heater back in. The slime coat started showing. I went with the paraguard for 2 weeks and they came back again.
This can happen with new discus. Even bought from the same place. I’d say that’s Gabe’s fish. Even healed some of those fish look like problem fish. Most of the better sellers have these in house cross contamination’s taken care of well before you get them. Shame you had to deal with this. Funny Gabe’s got lots of advice and videos on taking care of discus but sell fish like that. It’s pretty much him saying he knows better but just doesn’t care!! Money first everything must get sold!
Just curious is that a mistake about the 1 tsp per gallon of salt?

[GregMD]

Hi Tom-

No, it wasn't a mistake. That's about what I would use to treat initially.


Greg

[ProudMary]

Got it. I bought the fish from Wattley Discus and have been talking to Gabe. He suggested the first two steps (salt first, then Paraguard). Gabes been very helpful and responsive AND I appreciate getting different perspectives.

Did you ever consider that Gabe has nothing to do with your current situation?
If I were you I would move the discus to a 29gal quarantine tank, raise the temp to 88, ad salt and do major water changes daily.
I would get rid of your other fish, clean out your tank filter with PP and start up the tank and don’t move anything into it for a month.
I would bet that 50% of fish (salt and freshwater) purchased don’t make it past the first 2 weeks and maybe 25% make it to a year. No one wants to really talk about it.
It’s all about experience and not the number of posts made.

[Iminit]

I don’t think Greg said anything about Gabe. But I did . Next in the #5 post he states he got all his fish but the corys from Gabe. Did you look at his videos of the fish from today? Looks like he brought these discus back from their gifts from Gabe. Unfortunately Whattley is long gone annd would be embarrassed his name is associated with these discus. ProudMary are you Gabe?? Lol work for him?

Greg I know you’re new and you’re doing a great job saving those fish. Coming here was a good move! Youll find tons of great info here and plenty of help. You’ll also notice Whattley isn’t sponsored here. You’ll notice he not sponsored in any of the better sites.

[brewmaster15]

Okay redirect.. This thread should be Gregs fish.. lets get back on topic...Thanks
Al

[brewmaster15]

Did you ever consider that Gabe has nothing to do with your current situation?
If I were you I would move the discus to a 29gal quarantine tank, raise the temp to 88, ad salt and do major water changes daily.
I would get rid of your other fish, clean out your tank filter with PP and start up the tank and don’t move anything into it for a month.
I would bet that 50% of fish (salt and freshwater) purchased don’t make it past the first 2 weeks and maybe 25% make it to a year. No one wants to really talk about it.
It’s all about experience and not the number of posts made.

Why is that people think that they can post under an Alias on a forum as a troll and not get flagged. ProudMary is not Gabe, they are another member on the forum with an axe to Grind. Proud Mary is banned and if the member behind this post wants to stay part of the community here I suggest they cut the BS before they join Mary. Consider yourself warned..There will be no other warnings.

regards,
Al

[GregMD]

Thanks for the redirect Al, things got weird quick on that one.

Here is the update:

I'm continuing Paraguard and planning to do the prescribed 14-day treatment. It has been 8 days today. I've also moved to every other day water changes from every third day.

All fish are behaving well (active, eating well, showing at the glass when I come close, etc). I think they are looking better as well. Here is a video update of how they are looking: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v8Cfe8sHG5E

So I am staying the course and hoping for continued improvement.

Greg

[brewmaster15]

Thanks for the redirect Al, things got weird quick on that one.

Here is the update:

I'm continuing Paraguard and planning to do the prescribed 14-day treatment. It has been 8 days today. I've also moved to every other day water changes from every third day.

All fish are behaving well (active, eating well, showing at the glass when I come close, etc). I think they are looking better as well. Here is a video update of how they are looking: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v8Cfe8sHG5E

So I am staying the course and hoping for continued improvement.

Greg

Greg thanks for the update here. They are definitely looking much better. I would do exactly as you are here. I am really glad that it looks like its resolving with the paraguard!

al