Last Ditch 'Successful' Whirling Treatment

[jwcarlson]

Let me preface this by saying that I understand that it doesn't seem that anyone really knows what causes whirling. And also that I am by no means an expert and this is something that I have done just one time. Just putting it out there in case someone ends up in a similar situation.
The dates might not be perfect here, but it's close enough.

From out of nowhere in late January, one of my discus had a "freak out" (thread here: http://forum.simplydiscus.com/showth...ng-and-darting). It happened once and I wasn't home for it. I didn't see any additional whirling type behavior and I wrote it off as something that spooked the fish and caused the situation. Something like two or three weeks or so went by and then it whirled again during a water change. Then whirling started happening basically daily. It was common enough and violent enough that I could hear it from across the house. Slamming HARD into glass and other fish.

Brian had suggested I contact someone (I'm going to leave his name out of this at this point, but it's not hard to figure out). This individual had done this treatment four times, seemingly permanently helping three of the four. It's been six (almost seven) months and the fish I treated has had no additional instances of whirling. The suggestion was a high dose of metro (5 grams per 10 gallons) for three days. No water changes or feeding during that time. And lowering the temperature down to the upper 70s. I moved the whirling fish into a 10 gallon tank on her own and covered it in a towel to keep it pretty dark. Lowered the temp down to 76 (fairly aggressively, but not just an instant crash). I did three straight of these high dose metro treatments and at the end of that I brought her back up to 85 and moved her back into the main tank. The fish was seemingly 'back to normal' basically immediately. It never seemed particularly stressed during treatment.

That's basically the story. There's not a lot to it, I know. And, like I said... this is hardly scientific. I was going to kill the fish because it was in rough shape and clearly distressed. Unfortunately, I don't have a video of the whirling. It's possible this is different than other instances, but it looked fairly similar to videos of other whirling that I'd seen. Just thought I'd put that out there for anyone who might be in a corner with a whirler.

[brewmaster15]

Jacob,
I'm glad your fish is doing well now. Whether or not any of the things you did cured the fish or it was a combination of things is hard to say. Many say their cases of whirling disease were contagious and more than one fish was affected..whole tanks in some cases.. you had one fish affected. I'm guessing the rest of the fish are fine and did not undergo the treatment?

Basically you had multiple factors here that were changed so its hard to draw conclusions.

Was it the 5 grams metro per 10 g ? That would indicate a parasite..possible an anaerobic bacteria? If so which one and why are the other fish unaffected?

Was it the lowered tank temp? Most people elevate temps not lower them ... thats supposed to help metro work and increase the immune response.. though I don't subscribe to that line of belief personally. Lowering temps is a strategy that works well with cold water species...its a routine way of treating Axolotls with bacterial.infections.. place them in a refrigerator several days. But discus arent cold water critters. Colder temps have a long term stressing affect on them and impair their immune systems. Though a few days at the upper 70s is not terrible.

Was it being in the dark for several days.? Some protozoans use photosynthesis as part of their energy system..a common way to treat them is black out the tank while medicating.

Was it the several days no water changes? I do believe and have seen first hand that in some of these cases , especially ones where its one lone fish that the culprit is probable gas bubble disease. No water changes would allow the fish to deal with gas bubbles as it takes several days for a fish to clear the gas bubbles.

Was it a combination of things? No clue there... shotgun treatments are as Jacob said a last ditch method of dealing with a problem. Sometimes we get lucky. Sometimes it makes things worse. Unfortunately shotgun last ditch treatments also dont tell us anything about about the base reason the fish was whirling. It leaves more questions than it answers.

Why 5 grams?
Why 3 days low temp?
Why no water changes?
Why darken the tank?
Why no other fish were affected?
Etc...

When the treatment was first tried what was the rationale behind each aspect of using it? What was the suspected cause and why choose these ways of treating it?None of that seems to make sense to me.

Its definitely not scientific and leaves more questions than answers... but somewhere in there its possible that one of those treatment parameters or a combination of them did work. I hope in time more information is available. If anyone tries this method of treating whirling Discus keep good notes and report them. It may help narrow down the culprit and which parts of this treatment are actually the parts that work and which ones are not necessary. Just understand that its really a shot in the dark using any treatment when you don't even know what the actual problem is.

[Iminit]

For me the 2 individual fish that showed whirling (2. Different times) we’re dead within a day of showing whirling. Both fish were in qt as new fish and were with others that came with them. None of the others were affected and are all alive today. I had no time for treatment. Both looked great till the whirling started. Water was being changed daily when it happened. One fish 3” and I believe a runt the other 4”.