Another discus that doesn't eat

[Dave B]

From this, I wouldn't treat with anything except some TLC.

Well that's what I like to hear! I'm good at that. I'm mid-tank cleaning right now. Maybe I'll crank up the heat a few degrees.

Though I'm a little curious how we got from chilodonella (which is somewhat scary) to that.... if a fish withered away and died after not eating and now more won't eat, plus the SMs are a bit cloudy in the eye, something must be up, right? It has now been a week since the new hunger strikers ate.

Oh... forgot. One of the non eaters was doing some pretty intense deliberate gill flaring earlier today. It lasted maybe ten big shakes.

[Dave B]

One of the two non-eaters is showing food-seeking behavior (still not eating anything I give). This is encouraging.

The other one is hiding behind a big piece of wood and is uninterested. This is not. Especially since this is what the last ones, which are now dead, did.

A few more of the intense gill flicking today. Getting to the frequency where I start thinking there's something to it.

Meanwhile the female SM seems to have more black showing in her body, including the eye stripe. It's slightly visible in the 1/24 pics but I think it might be more now. Might just be the angle, but maybe not. I'm starting to worry about her. The male is darkening up universally. That's not the angle. He basically looks like he's in the shade all the time, even when he's not.

[mrblah00]

Sorry to hear things aren't improving. Wish i had some input for you but I'm not to the level yet to offer advice.
Hope that things improve.
Sam

[Eddie]

Let's get some pictures.


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[Dave B]

That I can do.

Right before I took these they were breathing very hard and the female did the heavy deliberate gill flap once. They got some nice 9am bright lights so I am just going to attribute the breathing hard to that. (The flap, maybe that's a symptom though. First I've seen her do it. Her left gill is taking a bit deeper strokes right now too.)

The first few pics are just broader for color. These are the same high ISO as before and the brightness of the others is a tad exaggerated. The most accurate is the third shot of just the male and female. You can see that his colors are there, but it's like he's in the shade. Not quite as bad as some of the super dark fish - and again, he's eating and chasing the other fish away - but not what he was in the previous pics at the same ISO (ie, same color as her).

[Dave B]

And the closeups. At this level of detail that stuff really looks crusty and worrisome.

IMG_0553.jpg IMG_0550.jpg IMG_0549.jpg

I had to throw a bullied fish (from another tank) into the 29g QT last night, which annoys me. The bullies were going to be sold today but the guy can't come til thursday. I may need to put her back but divide that tank. I think she has gotten weak enough to also have an actual infection, as she has a pale area behind her eye and a white mark at the very bottom of one gill. Last time she was bullied salt and solitude fixed her but this time it might take a bit more. If that's the case, I may just go buy another tank if I am going to end up needing to treat these fish.

I took some pics of the wilds that aren't eating too, but really, there's nothing visible wrong with them. In fact, if I had just been introduced to them today I'd think they looked fantastic. One of the two is actually really reddening up and looks better in general than he did a week ago... even though it has been 9-10 days since he ate. And to be totally honest, I'm not sure I can tell which two they are except at feeding time.

[jpdevol]

Good photography Dave.

The second set of pics show what really appears to be Chilodonella patch between the eyes.

[Dave B]

Thanks.

It's hard for me to say if that is any whiter than it was when I got them. It was never the same shade as the body, so in the early stages it stood out to me as just an uncolorful patch of them. Now, having researched it, it definitely seems more prominent. Before I got this camera (it's the camera, not me, btw) the old one didn't capture anything worth comparing. The pre-sale pics don't either, though it seems pretty clear here, even in different light and showing different color, that it was, at worst, more of a beige/yellow area that was just a bit dimmer than the rest of him.

My biggest worry about chilo is that at this point it is likely pretty advanced, given the whiteness, and the fact that he has been showing it at the very least since 1/6. Should I do a Formalin dip for the individual fish? 3 day bath for all of them?

(F+MG didn't work on the original subject of this thread, but perhaps he was simply too far gone.)

What's odd is how differently it manifests itself. The ones with the most visible symptoms eat and behave normally. The ones that stopped eating all look(ed) fine. The two young ones (which are in demand enough to attract tons of interest even after I disclosed this issue in the tank and took them off the market) continue unaffected.

Is the cloudy eye a secondary bacterial infection? Would I potentially want to follow up with a basic AB like TS or Furan later on after the protozoa treatment?

I guess it makes sense that they simply picked this up at some point and were vulnerable at Christmas when I was gone. A water change did get done mid-way, so they had only 2 4 day breaks, but there was quite a bit of debris from the feeding. Never got really bad, but I guess it was dirty enough.

Eddie, do you concur? How should I treat?

I appreciate all the help and attention this thread has gotten. I'm aware that I tend to talk an awful lot...

[Eddie]

I agree that it looks like chilodonella. The problem is that this would exist in the main tank and all your fish could be carriers. You can't treat the few visibly infected fish and return them to the main tank. They would get re-infected.


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[jpdevol]

Yes the ciliate is likely throughout the tank and others are infested, just presenting in different ways.

Long thread - you'll have to restate tank setting PH, GH & Temp.

I prefer straight Malachite Green and Salt 1Tbs/10gal - but need to confirm above.

[Eddie]

It's always a tough call when treating a community/display tank. Unfortunately it's best to sometimes break it all down and start from scratch.

I also recall any quarantine of your fish prior to adding them to the display tank. If you did skip quarantine in any manner, with any of the fish, it's good to mention it as this helps others to understand its importance.


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[Dave B]

I agree that it looks like chilodonella. The problem is that this would exist in the main tank and all your fish could be carriers. You can't treat the few visibly infected fish and return them to the main tank. They would get re-infected.

Right. This is my big concern. I also assume that my orangeheads carry it, even though they're breeding through it.

What about moving the fish to a smaller tank (29 or 40) for treatment and giving the main tank a nice intense PP bath? Since the protos are free-floating rather than lodged in any fish (since there aren't fish), would that kill them off?

I also have a bunch of oxolinic acid, for whatever that's worth. It's pretty potent...

Anyway, if that type of approach works, I wouldn't mind cycling all my tanks through that process, just to be on the safe side. And my equipment. The three pythons, for instance. (One of them has mold and should probably just be thrown out.)

Long thread - you'll have to restate tank setting PH, GH & Temp.

What do you mean by long thread?

Re-instating a tank is not that big a concern for me. I've had very good experiences with Seachem Stability and a week of light feeding and close watching.

[Eddie]

Then the best approach is to move all the fish to a bare tank and treat. It's up to you on how you want to deal the main tank. Personally, I'd scrap it all, break it all down and sanitize it. That's just me. I'm extremely anal about dealing with disease. Going with a high pp treatment will be a nice mess to clean up and you can't ensure total eradication.


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[jpdevol]

No, I just wanted to know the tank set-up (filters, fish, gallons, etc) and water parameters: PH, GH & Temp.

Long thread = too much to read through and situation may have changed.

[Dave B]

It's always a tough call when treating a community/display tank. Unfortunately it's best to sometimes break it all down and start from scratch.

I don't mind doing this. I want to install a background and buff the acrylic anyway. I just want to be sure I take all the right steps and don't accidentally undo everything.

I also recall any quarantine of your fish prior to adding them to the display tank. If you did skip quarantine in any manner, with any of the fish, it's good to mention it as this helps others to understand its importance.

I added my first batch to the existing tank with the orangeheads without a QT, using the thinking that if anything bad was present in either group of fish, it was going to show itself with or without quarantine; best that it be upstairs where it's more visible. (Either the orangeheads carried something that'd affect fish that passed QT and they'd get it later anyway, or the QTed group could have something to damage the orangeheads even if they seemed fine 3 weeks later.) I QTed the next batch (the wilds), but added them to the tank in January when this was apparently already present... I just didn't see it. I consider it close to zero percent chance that the 2nd batch is what introduced this. The first fish stopped eating before the new fish went in. The first guys exposed the second because I didn't catch it. On the "wait and see" protocol, I elected against deworming the wilds in QT.


Quick Cure is cheap enough that if I can find some locally I'll just put 125 drops in the main tank for three days (if that's the best course). Or I can do a smaller tank and sterilize this one (provided I do it right). If Malachite Green is not a necessary component of treatment, I have 4oz of FishVet's Formalin, which claims to treat 2000 gallons... so that's more than adequate for three days of treatment here. (Though it says "every other day until control is achieved")