DISCUS PLAGUE

[PLECO JOHN]

Hi everyone, I was highly recommended to come to you by a friend. I have what appears to be symptoms of DISCUS PLAGUE. After over one year of keeping Discus seemingly very healthy I have lost two in the last week and could see it coming. My fish turned grey and developed a coating of slime that looks like I could peel it right off.
Does anyone know of any medications that I can pick up at my LFS to treat my 65gal. tank. Is theier something in particular that I need.
I've read about DISCUS PLAGUE and it seems that the common denominator is Tetracycline. PLEASE HELP........I look forward to getting to know some of you. Buy the way, my largest fish is @ 4 1/2" and right now I have 5 about that size and smaller. AGAIN, MY THANKS TO THOSE WHO CONTRIBUTE TO MY DILEMA...........PLECO JOHN

[Wolf]

I am far from an expert but I will try to help you out a little since I had a similar experience. I am assuming that since you have been keeping discus for a year that all your water parameters are good and you do regular water changes on your fish and keep a clean tank environment. Is your tank a planted tank or bare bottom? Did this occur after you added new fish to the tank? Did they develop any white spots in the early stages of infection? Read the post above on columnaris and see if this could be the problem.

Always quarantine new fish for at least 6 weeks before adding to your tank. I had a similar thing happen to me. I was advised to add one tablespoon of salt per 10g and change water daily 50% with aged water of same temp and parameters. Don't forget to replace the salt that you take out during water changes. If that doesn't help slow down the infection, you may have to go to other meds. Hopefully , someone with more experience can help you out some. I had to use 250mg of erythromiacin per 10g gallon for 10 days to cure my fish since they had acquired some bacterial infection but using antibiotics is not usually recommended. Especially, if you don't know what you are treating for.

Take a look at this link and tell me if that's what your fish looked like. I'd be interested to hear if you added any new fish too.

http://members.shaw.ca/dclubine/quarantine.htm

Dave

[Wolf]

I can't speak for Pleco John but that is what happened to my fish. I lost one nice Heckel because of it too. I always have to learn the hard way it seems.

[PLECO JOHN]

Yes , this is exactly what two of my six look like and the two that died. What to do next. I still have four of six that appear healthy, although one is a Rded Panda and another is a Bright Red Marlboro so I imagine that the beginnings of this disease may be harder to detect.....Did I mention manage a pet shop, so if there is anything common that I can get from my store Let me know so I can get treatment started...... THANKS GUYS/GIRLS........PLECO JOHN

Did you read the link? I treated these fish with heat & salt and they were fine. I was told this was Columnaris.

Dave

[PLECO JOHN]

Thanks Dave , SALT AND HEAT IT IS!!!!!!

just for your information, Cary of GLD (one of the most respected members here) firmly believes that there is no such thing as a "Discus Plague," but rather what happens is any number of diseases that get diagnosed as the plague. Every time a fish has gotten that sick and died, he's taken them in for biological testing and every time the disease was determined to be something else. You may want to give Cary a call, he'll be more than glad to diagnose your [fishies'] disease and tell you what to do as a treatment. Take that for what it's worth, but until someone can diagnosis what exactly causes discus plague and what the result is, i'm going to firmly believe that it's just any one of a number of diseases.
Brad

[Steve Rybicki]

Brad,

You may or may not be able to answer this, but I'll ask for anyone who can. Would the diagnostic lab be able to detect a virus if it were the cause?

Secondary and tertiary infections are common with fish that are sick. Could the lab determine if the diagnosis was a primary pathogen?

I'm not the best person to answer those specific questions, but I do have an answer that would satisfy the question. What i meant, was, that every time someone has taken a fish they thought had the Discus Plague to a pathologist, the cause of death was always FOUND to be some other virus/bacteria/protazoan/etc. So, there has never been a cause of death that was unidentifiable as something common, so there is no evidence of the existance of a discus plague. Do ya get what I"m sayin?
HTH
Brad

[EthanCote.com]

Perhaps this might clarify some things.

I have heard and read that Discus Plague is like HIV in humans. In that the HIV lowers our immune system and thus pathogens that are normally harmless to a healthy individuals can comprised the health of a person with HIV.

Same goes for those Discus with the Plague. It appears the Plague lowers the immune system of the fish and thus leaving it vulnerable to pathogens that are otherwise harmless.

Here was a thread I started way back when I first joined Simply that answer your question:
http://forum.simplydiscus.com//index.php?board=4


Cheers,

Chi.

[PLECO JOHN]

I have to say that these most recent replies have me more than perplexed. If "Discus Plague" could be attributed to any one of of , lets say, 50 diseases/bacteria/parasite/protozoan/stress.......ETC. then how in the world can anyone tell me what a cure could be. I compare this to someone going to a 2nd century healer and saying , or grunting, "I'm Sick". Please don't take this wrong as I certainly am not trying to bite the hand that feeds me, and EVERYONE HAS BEEN GREAT!!!!! But how do you cure someone when you don't know what they have???
The common denominators that I've found in several articles seem to be salt, to slow down the disease path and Oxytetracycline as a cure. Has anyone had any experience with Tetracycline or Oxy-tetracycline??? .........AGAIN, I THANK YOU ALL FOR YOUR INPUT AND COOPERATION. I'll let you know how 5 days of Maracide works..........PLECO JOHN

John,


lose the maracide alone. I highly recommend TC but not Oxy
I only use Oxy with copper sulphate but do not recommend this treatment to you!


Your best bet would be to double dose. treat daily.
change 50% water daily. And make sure Your tank is covered all the way and very clean before You start. first dose of tc will make Your discus Skittish. If a space is open on your tank in the morning expect to see a few Discus on the floor. I recommend double dose cause at regular dose most organism's are resitant to TC
another good choice would be neomycin or erythromycin.



Your best bet if able to ship would be sending a discus
to Mike mauel at veterinary dignostic and investigational laboratory to the university of georgia here's his # 229 3863340 tell him cary sent ya!


The cost is $20 a fish.
if your short on cash you could also go with craig banner
at the oregon department of fish and wildlife
OSU department of microbiology his fee is free.

both are highly recommended!
Other then that! Yes we are just guessing and most of the time we are right! just because we know whats been going on lately and what meds have been used susessfully.

Maybe If You email Me were you Bought the discus I might
be able to help you More. If you go with the docs they will
pinpoint your problem and a cure forsure without a guess. But this will take a week or so and sounds to me that time is something you do not have right now. If this helps it sounds mild to me and salt and maracide might work. If you have it use it! This will help keep secondary infections at bay.

Also Tc can be mixed with maracide and salt IMO a great combo.

hth
takecare'
cary gld!

P.S Bet you a breeding pair its not Plague ;D

[Steve Rybicki]

Like Chi., I was under the impression that if the fish had the plague, the cause of death was always a secondary infection. I was just curious if the labs have the ability to detect and identify the virus, if it existed.

Of course, without the lab you can never do more than treat the symptoms.

Cary, didn't the University of Georgia do some research into the virus a few years back? Do you know of any results of that research?

[EthanCote.com]

Osp the link I posted above didn't go to the post I wanted. Here is the link again. And Steve, I believe it will answer your question, just click to go to page 2 and read up on Mat's post.

http://forum.simplydiscus.com//index...;threadid=3196


Cheers,

Chi.