Discus Parasite Identification Please Help!

[Nautical]

Hello All,

Have a sick adult discus which I've moved into quarantine tank; noticed slime wiped onto side of the tank by the fish had little white dots in it, checked under my crappy microscope and found these parasites. Have attached a very rudimentary video; please help me identify them so I can determine the appropriate treatment.

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


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).

Fish stopped eating, and later started using only one gill (right hand gill). Was still behaving normally: fighting with other discus, but seemed a little lethargic, and showed very little interest in food before it stopped eating altogether.


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

Salt. No medication so far. Am about to start treatment of metronidazole at 200mg per 40L.

Tank/Water

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

Was kept in 150L tank with 4 other adult discus. Water change regimen is every two days +/- 50%.


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

Every two days +/- 50%.


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

Bare bottom. Used cycled sponge filters and tank has been running for 3-4 months.

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

Age water for two days. There seems to be a pH swing of 0.4-0.8 pH (tank water is 7, town supply water seems to fluctuate between 7-8).


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. Add to aging barrel.

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 _____ 29 degrees C (have put discus in quarantine tank at 32 degrees C)

- ph _____ 7

- ammonia reading ____ 0

- nitrite reading ____ 0

- nitrate reading ____ 0

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.

Cycled filters came from pet shop aquarium which had snails in.

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.

Beef heart and seafood homemade food.

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.

https://youtube.com/shorts/_fbwG8WoKxw?feature=share

[Nautical]

Second video link below:
https://youtube.com/shorts/X_i-h-JAsUY?feature=share

[Nautical]

Sorry I'm not sure how to make yt videos in hd, see below temporary links:
https://streamable.com/f907op
https://streamable.com/ytxclt

[bluelagoon]

Not likely the cause of your issue but, question 8. It is very important to add Prime just prior to use when putting in aging barrel. The bond won't last two days, so don't put it in and let it sit for 2 days in aging barrel before you use it. The chlorine will air off but ammonia part will not if your water supplier uses chloramine instead of just chlorine. Maybe a picture of the discus will help. I can't see the pics well, they look blurry to me.

[jeep]

#10 is what concerns me. Can you post a video and photos of the fish, including close ups, and not just a microscopic picture?

I suspect cross contamination from the new filters...

[Nautical]

Thanks for the input guys. Have attached an image of the fish (Monday 16th Oct 23) before I transferred to quarantine tank (looks perfectly healthy in the picture so not sure how useful this is).

However after I transferred the discus the quarantine tank it turned dark, started breathing heavier (2-3 times per second - thought maybe the increase in water temp caused this), and begun leeching slime by the bucketload. This was basically immediately after I moved the fish so I assume this is stress-induced. It also began swimming funny (i.e. along it's side on the bottom, and up and down in a W motion); initially thought swim bladder injury from transfer but found it sitting upright when it was sleeping. A couple days after fish seemed okay - was swimming around normally and I could see any slime strings hanging off it (on day 1 of metronidazole treatment). Is still dark in coloration though (not black, just dark like when the fish is stressed).

Discus has also been doing white stringy poop but it hasn't eaten for about a week and a half.

There is nothing visibly wrong with the fish (no fin rot or damage, no skin sores, no visible parasites on body, no weight loss, no drastic change in behaviour aside from as I've described above).

Re the cross contamination, filters were kept in some planted african cichlid tanks - haven't noticed any issues with any of my other 12 discus in various tanks using these filters. Is just the visible parasites in the excreted slime that I'm worried about as I suspect them to be the cause of the loss of appetite and minor lethargy.

20231016_180838.jpg
20231016_180849.jpg

Will upload a more current photo of the fish when I get home tonight.

[Nautical]

Should add the discus lost interest in the beef heart mix about a month ago, and was just nibbling at tetra colour granules and some vegetables that come out of the mix. Stopped eating altogether probably more like two weeks ago.

[bluelagoon]

I'm with Brian. A cycled filter from a fish shop. Always quarantine from a fish store. They're a good place to pick up parasites because of all the fish coming and going and buying from different places.

[brewmaster15]

Hi,
You mentioned homemade seafood mix? What do you put in it?

Also .. 200mgs per 40 liters is on the low side for concentration . How are you planning on using the metronidazole? Is the metro pure?

Have to say that The sliming up when placed in the qt tank sounds like the water was straight from tap..unaged. when you age your water do you aerate it?

[Nautical]

Seafood mix is hoki (white flesh fish), shrimp, beef heart, spinach, carrots, garlic etc. Water was aged and aerated prior to adding to quarantine tank - may have been over-aerating the water in the tank.

Upon advice from local fish store employee I moved the discus back into main tank and started praziquantel treatment at 1mg/1L . At day 4 of the treatment, still noticing no change. At what point should I change tack - i.e. up the dose or reinitiate metro treatment at a higher dosage (I had the fish in the tank with the .2g/40L metro concentration for 1 day); or try salt/PP bath? Metro treatment was using Flagyl 200mg tablets crushed and dissolved in tank water.

Discus is still hiding in back of the tank a lot and not eating. Is now breathing out of the other gill. Seems normal otherwise; still looks the same as the above photo.

[brewmaster15]

Seafood mix is hoki (white flesh fish), shrimp, beef heart, spinach, carrots, garlic etc. Water was aged and aerated prior to adding to quarantine tank - may have been over-aerating the water in the tank.

Upon advice from local fish store employee I moved the discus back into main tank and started praziquantel treatment at 1mg/1L . At day 4 of the treatment, still noticing no change. At what point should I change tack - i.e. up the dose or reinitiate metro treatment at a higher dosage (I had the fish in the tank with the .2g/40L metro concentration for 1 day); or try salt/PP bath? Metro treatment was using Flagyl 200mg tablets crushed and dissolved in tank water.

Discus is still hiding in back of the tank a lot and not eating. Is now breathing out of the other gill. Seems normal otherwise; still looks the same as the above photo.

Salt and pp baths will not help here. If your fish have parasites causing the problem its internal.

Im going to be candid here. You are making a classic mistake with your discus. I have seen this before. When hobbyists fish get sick and they dont know what to do they start bouncing all over the place for advice and often that advice conflicts with other advice. Going from the forum to your local petshop then back to the forum 4 days latter looking for advice again is going to hurt Your fish. So far both meds you have tried dosing were low doses and not carried out as they should have been. Not trying to be hard on you but I am being honest.

I think its possible that your fish have hexamita . I would rule that out first by using metronidazole at a dose of 250-500 mgs per 10 gals aka 38 liters. This should be done for at least 7 days,better would be 10 days. Large water changes before dosing.

I would also re-evaluate the food you are feeding.. You want foods with high attraction if the appetite is poor. See if You can find freeze dried blackworms in your country and hikari frozen bloodworms. Live blackworms and even frozen brine shrimp. Stay away from homemade mixes until the appetites have returned.

Hth,
Al

[Nautical]

Thanks again Al for the input.

Am just finishing a praziquantyl treatment (the whole tank) and the fish has definitely recovered (hexamita unless I'm mistaken isn't visible to the naked eye so concluded it was some kind of flagellate). For some reason is still not interested in the homemade food but is happily eating the dried flake food and bloodworms.

I can get freeze-dried blackworms in NZ but they're way too expensive to consider feeding regularly.

Will keep an eye on it for now.

[brewmaster15]

Sounds like a big improvement ..Im glad. Watch out for more white stringy poop. If it returns I would suggest a round of metro, since its eating flakes you may be able to find flakes with metro in it. Good luck.

[Red Eye.]

Al you was very helpful here...

Why is droppings white?...I wonder what they contain?....been reading about the move away from Beefheart foods being un natural to them...? in the wild they must pick at small foods all day so not too become to bloated.....beefheart I know has been around for year, so why the new thinkings....

back in the day would only use one a week.

[brewmaster15]

Al you was very helpful here...

Why is droppings white?...I wonder what they contain?....been reading about the move away from Beefheart foods being un natural to them...? in the wild they must pick at small foods all day so not too become to bloated.....beefheart I know has been around for year, so why the new thinkings....

back in the day would only use one a week.

Matthew, when discus are dealing with parasites that attack their guts there is an immune response that causes inflammation and shedding of the lining. That shed lining often contains the disease organism as well. Discus eat off the bottom of the tank and ingest it and the cycle perpetuates and spreads. This same response can happen just from stress itself and happens with bacterial infections.

Beefheart really is not a bad food option. Provided its clean of fats and connective tissue. Many many discus have been raise on it. I no longer use it because I found foods that work better for me and meet my goals in foods. It also has become very to find here and expensive. In my area it was up to $ 5 a pound then I had to clean it and dedicate freeze space.. no thanks.

Food options abound today that we did not have in the early days. That does not mean Beefheart is bad.. just that we have alternatives.

hth,
al