New Heckels...what to do?

[Moon]

As Larry mentioned in an earlier post I find Heckels are hardier than domectic discus. I rarely have to treat mine for any kind of ailment.
Sometimes they go off food for a day or two. Let them be without food for a couple of days. Watch them carefully for symptoms of Hex.

[illumnae]

I'm going down to my LFS tonight so I'll see if they have a bag of brine shrimp for sale...if so i'll try it to see if they eat that. I do intend to start treatment for internal parasites tomorrow anyway as part of my preventive maintenance treatment for newly arrived wild fish. Hopefully they start eating properly soon so i can start training them to eat my NLS discus formula!

[illumnae]

Furan-2 course completed...however, I noticed tonight that one of the Heckels has his mouth swollen on one side. When viewed on one side, he looks normal...when viewed on the other side, his lip is white and swollen. Anyone can diagnose?

[AlexR]

Illumnae,

here are some "wild" advice from the European continent :-)

1. Don`t feed to much bloodworms to wilds
2. Try frozen Artemia (defrosted) and some Daphnia
3. Dont`t try to much different food like fruits to early. They will not accept it quickly and the waste pollutes the water
4. I would NEVER use medicine without exact examination AND diagnosis.
5 Discus are able to recreate from transport when they have perfect water condition, a quiet place, no sand on the bottom (may cause scratches when they panic), slow rising and dimming light.

To reduce the amount of floating bacteria I would use
- a UVC clearer
- or some PH reducing ingredients like peat (best way would be to treat the water with peat separately first, then using it in the tank)
- or/and EasyLife, it is perfect to help the wilds to get off their scrathes and marks (they often have scrathes on the eyes from the inner side of the plastic bag on the transport)
- 30% water change every 3rd day

The "broadband" medicine treatment over long terms will harm the discus.

You will never be able to reach every parasites, the wilds will be re-infected in a short term. And they are not able to fight against the parasites (or bacteria) after weeks of heavy medication.

When there are specific problems it ist ok to use it, no question. But not to use it like chemical weapon. The discus is healthy when there is the right balance between parasites and his own ability to keep it under control.

To reach this point the wilds will need to get perfect very soft water and high quality food (6-8 times a day, frozen food not in a block but defrosted + rinsed) and stable, quiet conditions.

All the best!

Alex

[AlexR]

here are some images

first young wilds after 1 week

[AlexR]

the same wilds after 7 month :-)

no medication, just a lot of (soft) water to change + 60% frozen artemia/brine shrimp, 20% granulat, 20% mixed frozen food

[illumnae]

Lovely wilds you have alex...thanks for the advice!

[plecocicho]

I agree with Alex and add these:
1.Garlic mixed in your food blend helps to supress nematode and bacterial parasite inside discus. That was proven in an old discus brief article in which one month garlic was mixed in bf food. Water was changed only once during the treatment to deliver stress and better prolification of nematods in weaken discus. After the tratment discus were killed and looked for eggs and adult nematods. Treated discus had no eggs an adult nematods, while discus in control group all were infected with nematods
2.Alternative to protein rich bf mix are earthworms familly Enychtrididae. Those are small, an ich sised white worms which can be easilly kept and breed. You feed them either bread or cornflakes cooked in milk. They are rich in fat and proteins so they make an welcomming change in discus diet. And the best thing is, they do not pollute your water as bfmix do.
3. Termilaia leaves and tree bark (even better because it releases tannins and humic acids longer than leaves and also build down longer) are antibacterial, wild discus love them. Also by putting them in your aquarium (app. 1 leaf for 56 l) your tank looks even more natural.
PS. Alex your discus are stunning please post more pics of them and their aquarium.

[Genirous]

Ηι illumnae,

my thoughts differ a little bit. I believe that there are three basic things that can make happy and healthy heckels:
Correct water parametres (as near to the biotope as possible with extreme low pH and minimum TDS)
suitable aquascape (with many woods, shadows, floor-space with sand and low light) and
good nutrition! (live food or frozen food at least in the beggining)

Of course there are many more things that someone must take into consideration. Personally I give importance to these three above, because they work for me...prevention and not suppression. Unfortunately heckels are the most shy and most coward discus there is... They become very stressed, very easily and this leads to sicknesses...

Can you upload some pictures from your tank?

[illumnae]

They are currently in quarantine and won't be transferred to the main tank till January. I'll try and take some pictures of the QT tank (which is hopefully modelled after their natural habitat), but it's likely you won't see the discus in the photos as they are always hiding and dark

[Eddie]

Sorry in advance for jumping on your thread Illumnae.


All I can say is DAMN Alex those are some amazing discus and pictures. Your tanks look SPOTLESS, like you clean them all day long! Totally flawless.

Eddie

[aquadiva]

Beautiful Discus!! They look very healthy and I have to compliment your tank too! It looks PERFECT! Where did you find that nice piece of root-like wood to put in there? Everything looks great!

Anna

[AlexR]

Thank you for your comments, this weekend I will put a new thread with photos + informations here in this section to keep Illumnae's heckel thread "on track".


Alex

[Apistomaster]

As Larry mentioned in an earlier post I find Heckels are hardier than domectic discus. I rarely have to treat mine for any kind of ailment.
Sometimes they go off food for a day or two. Let them be without food for a couple of days. Watch them carefully for symptoms of Hex.

I did not say Heckels are hardier than any other discus.
What I said was that they are much hardier than altum angels.
Heckels are probably the least hardy of the wild discus and all wild discus acclimate to new conditions easier than new altum angelfish imports.

[illumnae]

Sorry for the silence thus far, the swollen lip guy passed on...his whole lip became like 3x the normal size and he floundered for awhile before going stiff.

The good news is that I added 2 more heckels from another source, but the same size. That batch was more stable than the ones I got initially, and they spurred my remaining 5 to be more comfortable. They are mostly still hiding at the back, but they're less dark now. The 2 new ones are almost never dark except on occasion. Fins wise, they are sometimes clamped and sometimes erect. They are also feeding like pigs! Prior to the new guys, the pick at frozen bloodworms...1 cube per feeding. Now, the new guys lead the charge and they fight for 2 cubes per feeding which finishes in under 3 minutes...they fight over the worms too.

Now my headache is how to get them to stop hiding so much and to venture around more openly "for my viewing pleasure" so to speak...and also to get them to start eating NLS pellets. Attempts to train them to eat pellets so far have been met with failure.

I'll try and take pictures soon