Discus refuses food

[MarksKoi]

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

My largest discus which is about 8 years old stopped eating around 4 weeks ago. This was abrupt in that the day before it was hoovering food up then the next day it was sluggishly going towards the food, putting it in its mouth then spitting it back out.


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).

- Darker than normal in appearance
- White cyst like poo which eventually disappeared. Not pooing anything now.
- Not eating at all; starving to death
- Slow sluggish movement
- Tail fin is slightly pointing downwards

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

Fish was placed in a 27 litre quarantine tank with 1.2 tablespoons of aquarium salt, metroplex and praziquantel. The temperature was upped to 34 degrees C. The metro was added daily for 10 days.

On about the 3rd day of treatment the fish eat 30 live brineshrimp and thereafter stopped eating altogether again.


Tank/Water

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

300 litre tank which is 5 years old. 6 other discus that are each about 8cm in length.


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

Daily siphon of the base with about 10% of the water changed each day.


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

About 5 years. It is bare bottom.


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

No, it is tap water.


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

I have not used any water conditioner for 3 years.


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 32 degrees C

- ph 7.2

- ammonia reading 0 ppm

- nitrite reading 0 ppm

- nitrate reading 10 ppm

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.

All tap water.


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

No.


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 Tetra Discus grandules 6x per day.


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.

The following is a video of how the fish is acting today (3rd January 2024)
https://youtu.be/Drxv1jnwKEY

The following pictures show how the disease began 4 weeks ago. There is a cyst like particle that came out of the fish and became rested on the aquarium base.

IMG-2225-2.jpg

Image link: https://i.ibb.co/YPmMW0f/IMG-2227.jpg

Image link: https://i.ibb.co/djdSpQ5/IMG-2226-2.jpg

[brewmaster15]

Mark,
Welcome to SimplyDiscus. I wish it was under better circumstances. It looks to me like your fish is at the end of its life. The not eating and wasting away..the leathery wrinkled look to its sides.. 8 years is a long time for a discus.. most hobbyists usually keep them alive far less than that.

The white mass could be from an infection.. older fish have weaker immune systems. It could have gotten blocked up as well. In the video I can see some swelling.

I wish I could suggest some miracle medicine here but best I can do is suggest compassionately euthanizing it..

I really dont think medications will help and at this point its organs are probably shutting down.

Im really sorry.

Al

[MarksKoi]

Thank you for the warm welcome.

It did cross my mind that the fish is quite old and that I should factor this into how it is behaving. I just find it strange that on the 3rd day of treatment it was more active and eat a lot of live brineshrimp (around 30 of them) as though it was getting better. This is not something I would expect to happen with age, right?

Also the fish goes dark then lighter as though it is in pain for periods of time only to then feel better. Its not persistently dark in colour.

[brewmaster15]

I just find it strange that on the 3rd day of treatment it was more active and eat a lot of live brineshrimp (around 30 of them) as though it was getting better. This is not something I would expect to happen with age, right?

If I had a guess I would say that it probably was fighting an infection. Metronidazole treats protozoans and some anaerobic bacteria.. what you would find in a typical gut infection. Its possible the fish rallied with the metro but just was too old and weak and just could not recover..

[MarksKoi]

I agree that age is playing a big factor here. I can't say its the tank environment that brought this on as ammonia/nitrite are 0, nitrates are 10-15 ppm and I'm feeding granulated food with no parasites. No big changes to temperature. I do daily base siphoning. For this one fish, which happens to be the eldest, to get sick is really suspicious.

Having said this, the smallest discus has now stopped eating and has white stringy faeces. This follows praziquantel treatment which reduced all their appetite but the smallest has continued to avoid food alongside having clamped fins for 2 days now.

I am hope I'm correct to start another course of Metroplex treatment? Ive also upped the temperature to 34C.