Hunger strikes, one fish at a time

[Dave B]

Hey all... I haven't been here in about a decade, but am still keeping discus, and for the first time in a very long time I'm at a loss for good ideas. Hopefully this site still has enough traffic despite the rise of FB groups and reddit and whatnot.

I swear these fish are intermittent fasting or something...

But seriously:

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?

For a few months now, one fish at a time has peeled off from the group and become antisocial in the back behind a hunk of wood. At first these fish stop caring about the pellet/granule food, but eventually they stop attempting to eat at all, and then of course start losing some weight and looking weak.

The first time this happened there was noticeable bullying. So it was pretty easy to call it stress-related. These last few times though... no bullying that I've observed. No water issues whatsoever. One water change I think maybe I spooked one of them with the hose for the refill, but that's still a guess (that particular fish went from 100% to headstanding and then death; it's the one I haven't saved). Until this past week, metro in the hospital tank has done the trick.

But now there are three in quick succession, in rotation, that have shown the exact same symptoms, one at a time, with one currently in the 10g hospital tank as a repeat visitor, one currently eating blackworms and beefheart but not pellet, and one currently on day 2 of a total hunger strike. In the exact same place in the tank.

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 noted above. The one on day 2 still looks majestic, fin and color-wise, but isn't eating. The others have eventually started to look a tad stressed, of course, with darkening and clamping and of course weight loss.

I have, at times, noticed the fish using only one gill. I feel like this may be important. Like perhaps it indicates that there is some type of persistent parasite in the tank somehow that only affects the weakest fish if other stressors are present.

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

Heat to 92 (full tank), metro 500mg a day for 10 days in a 10g hospital tank. This has worked many times for me but not now.

This has worked repeatedly. In fact my most voracious eater now is Slim Shady, the first one I encountered with this issue (and from whom I learned the process I've followed... I had honestly given him up for dead he was so pale and shrunken but then the metro AND heat technique just woke him up one day and he is a pig... albeit still not visually as round/perfect.)

But right now I'm concerned that Fireball in the hospital tank is giving up. He has been through multiple cycles of metro, was eating, got put back in the main tank, stayed sort of tentative/weak but still ate (BW not pellet), and then stopped eating again. Now that he's back in the hospital at 92 degrees he is really wasting away quickly and I am concerned. The fact that as soon as I removed him, another fish (her twin) stopped eating, makes me think something is up in the whole tank.

Obviously, at 220g I would really rather not have to source 250 pills of metro (I used to be able to get it easily but not anymore), plus at this point I am worried, based on Fireball, that metro isn't the actual fix anymore.

Tank/Water

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

220, 8 Wattley discus and 3 old geos

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

50% whenever I start seeing algae (2 weeks or so).

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

10 years. A tiny dusting of pool filter sand.

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?

Safe, powder, always at larger dose (Miami water is nice but I learned the hard way in 2018 that they randomly spike chloramines without warning)

9. Parameters and water source;

- temp 84 (usual), 92 now
- ph 7
- ammonia reading 0
- nitrite reading 0
- nitrate reading 0-5

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 plus salt

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

No.

The last time I added fish (all from the same trusted vendor) it was a trio of dinner plate sized females and I guess that sort of disrupted the egg-laying process (there were two that were trying weekly that don't anymore), but they themselves aren't bullies and nothing noticeable changed right away.

Still, that may also be a clue. Even though I'd be SHOCKED if any of Gabe's fish brought a parasite along for the ride.

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.

Pellets 2-3x a day, freeze dried blackworms as a treat, occasionally beefheart (but it's so messy)


Appreciate any attention/suggestions that may come!

[brewmaster15]

DAVE,
Welcome back! Yes we are still here and alive and kicking.
Need to ask you for some images please and what pellets are you feeding. Do they really like the pellets when not sick? I would suggest you add more blackworms and beefheart if they will eat that. Spoil them if you have to to get the weight on.

Your water changes are seriously lacking. While you may be able to get away with that with healthy fish for awhile it sounds like you have an endemic parasite issue. Fish are shedding it..probably a protozoan, into the tank and re-infecting fish. I would treat the whole tank at double the metro you have been using since you know its been working.

One note you mentioned buying metro pills.. buy the the pure powder in bulk at Jehmco.com. It will save you a ton and allow you to scale up dosing which you may need.


How big a water change can you do without stressing your fish.?

Al

[Dave B]

DAVE,
Welcome back! Yes we are still here and alive and kicking.
Need to ask you for some images please and what pellets are you feeding. Do they really like the pellets when not sick?

Why thank you! Let me see if I can get a photo and shrink it so it uploads nicely.

Tropical Discus Grans. And yes, I eased off on the beefheart because they were all perfectly content to eat that.

I would suggest you add more blackworms and beefheart if they will eat that. Spoil them if you have to to get the weight on.

This is not an issue in the large tank but I am in constant fear with the hospital tank. It's tough for me to get more than 50% at a time there since that puts the water level at lower than the fish's height, and no matter how well established the sponge filter is I still never trust that it's adequate. So even 2x daily (and yes I have done that for a while) still makes me nervous at times. As opposed to in the big tank...

Your water changes are seriously lacking. While you may be able to get away with that with healthy fish for awhile it sounds like you have an endemic parasite issue.

Well I should note that I have tried doing way more frequent changes, it didn't really seem to matter. Of course, since the tank is so uncrowded that I never see more than 5ppm nitrate it's possible that even from .01 to .1 makes a difference since that's 10x the nitrate...

Fish are shedding it..probably a protozoan, into the tank and re-infecting fish. I would treat the whole tank at double the metro you have been using since you know its been working.

But yeah, this makes sense about a protozoan just persisting no matter what since the cures only happen in the hospital tank. That was my fear.

Do you have any concern that the one fish that went through the treatment is in any way resistant to it now? I know these kinds of things do happen with antibiotics. But then again, as mentioned, she could just be getting reinfected with the same thing, not some mutated resistant version of it, since it's two tanks.

One note you mentioned buying metro pills.. buy the the pure powder in bulk at Jehmco.com. It will save you a ton and allow you to scale up dosing which you may need.

Ooooh. I feel like I knew of that site but this last go round it didn't pop up. It says "call" for the pricing on a kg but if it's $15 for 100g then yeah this ought to be the next best thing. (My only reason for preferring pills is that it used to be easy to get a 500x500mg bottle super cheap which was useful for humans, the dogs, and the fish.) 10 days x 1g x 22 is a lot but still well within that bulk powder limit. I'm definitely calling them up tomorrow!

How big a water change can you do without stressing your fish.?

In the big tank I can and have done 90+%... although I would say that they seem to get stressed from any change. But that's always just temporary. Some of these fish are going on 8 years old, so I've never worried too much about that part. I used to always overdo the water changes (because it's so easy... effortless and fast as long as I pay attention and know when to turn the fill water off - which I have screwed up before to disastrous consequences ) but have backed way off because the water params were always fine and the fish were constantly laying eggs. So it's no biggie to do a giant 70-80% a day for 10 days with metro if that'd help. (I will note that another reason I slowed my WC pace was that Gabe always assured me that it was overkill, and he's not a guy whose knowledge I question.)

[Iminit]

Well Gabe’s not who he used to be. Being there was nothing wrong with your tank for years what you got came from him. He’s given many the “no need to change that much water” story. It’s great for business.

Do you have a uv steralizer in the tank?

[Dave B]

No sterilizer. Actually when I bought this tank it came with one with a bad bulb but I never replaced it or set it up. I suppose now that I'm not living check to check I should look into just getting a new one and setting it up.

[LizStreithorst]

Well Gabe’s not who he used to be. Being there was nothing wrong with your tank for years what you got came from him. He’s given many the “no need to change that much water” story. It’s great for business.

Do you have a uv steralizer in the tank?

Tom, in your planted tank a UV filter keeps the algae at bay. Most of us here find them unnecessary.

[brewmaster15]

Dave,

Why thank you! Let me see if I can get a photo and shrink it so it uploads nicely

the software here should resize for you. If using your phone.. read this..

http://forum.simplydiscus.com/showth...sers-read-this

Please post a bunch of pics of your tank,healthy fish and sick fish..

Thanks!
Al

[Iminit]

Liz you’re 100% right. But anything that goes through a uv dies. Years ago I’d bought plants for 2 30g I had. Same plants. One tank got ich the other didn’t. The 2nd tank had a sunsun filter with a uv steralizer in it. No ich. 1st tank I added a uv to it. 3 days ich gone. No meds no raising temp and salt just the uv.
Whatever he’s got it’s in the main tank. It’s in the fish and the water. So the meds added to the water may or may not kill what’s in the water. They should kill what’s in the fish but being a 220 a uv is his best bet for removing whatever it is. In my 180 I use a 24w green machine and change bulbs every 8 months.

[Dave B]

So as long as I'm ordering from Jehmco is there anything else I might as well toss in to the order to have on hand? Prazi maybe?

I have 32 500mg caps of metro too, wondering if there's a smart strategy to use them to get things started while it ships. Maybe just in the hospital tank for the one guy that's really lost weight.

[brewmaster15]

Prazi is a good medicine to have on hand if you are trying to save shipping costs... also you mentioned one fish was labored gill breathing...might be flukes.

[Dave B]

well since the update my phone is taking HEIC images now instead of JPEG, and those don't upload. They're crap anyway... while the iPhone itself has come a long way since I last tried to take fish pictures (my avatar was on a good Canon back in the day) I am now cursed with a huge glare from the windows opposite the tank. Maybe at night it'll be OK.

Anyway, I ordered the Metro and some Prazi. Annoyingly it's not likely to get here until Tuesday, but I have enough to treat the hospital tank between now and then, at least, for the guy who has lost a ton of weight. (I fear that the temperature at 92 just accelerated that... it happened very quickly, unlike Slim.) Definitely need to get him eating again soon.

[brewmaster15]

well since the update my phone is taking HEIC images now instead of JPEG, and those don't upload. They're crap anyway... while the iPhone itself has come a long way since I last tried to take fish pictures (my avatar was on a good Canon back in the day) I am now cursed with a huge glare from the windows opposite the tank. Maybe at night it'll be OK.
.

https://www.businessinsider.com/guides/tech/heic-to-jpg

[Dave B]

Heh, I would've figured that one out if I had gotten any pics that were worthwhile. (Which I still haven't, because I'm never in this room after dark when there'd be no glare.)

Anyway, the meds came a day early on Monday, and all the fish in the main tank were eating ravenously before I even put a dose in, which is why I forgot to come back here. So that tank is on day 5 of double metro now, and the 10g hospital is on day 7 since I still had some 500mg pills. I think that one (Fireball) has given up, though. Just hiding in corners now, listing about, and very very thin. (This one I could get a picture of without glare... what specifically are we looking for in a photo?) Still no interest in food. I'm not very optimistic for her. Not too sure what else to do, she's getting 80% daily changes and the meds and heat.

Pretty confident in the main tank though, they're all happy and gobbling up 5 meals a day and still always begging for more. A few have gotten spoiled though, and are now too good for the pellets, which is a bit annoying. But oh well. Good problem to have.