Al has spoken and Al is a scientist. His advice has a sound basis.
Jeep is right about the salt. Salt is salt, Buy the cheapest you can find. I had no clue about $6 for 40 lbs. Now I know.
Mama Bear
Adam , a Salt bath is a lower concentration than the dip. Thats why its able to be tolerated for days without issue. Dips are done in a bucket.Baths in the tank. The Idea with the dip is short duration higher concentration. In a salt water dip the fish will often reach a point in 20-30 mins where it loses equilibrium and floats to the top of the bucket. Thats called "rolling over ". Its scary as heck when you first see it happen as you think you killed your fish. Thats the point you remove it from the bucket and put back into freshwater. The fish will go back to normal swimming in mins.
The high salt dip strips off slime coat, causes parasites to rupture and die, Destroys fungus etc.
2-3 tablespoons salt per gal water in a bucket is sufficient for a dip for discus. salt needs to be well dissolved and an airstone used.
Good discussion here...
http://forum.simplydiscus.com/showth...-Do-a-Salt-Dip
Al
Last edited by brewmaster15; 05-21-2019 at 05:46 AM.
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Al Sabetta
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I take Pics.. click here for my Flickr images
Update,well made it through the night.The white slime has gone and they all look clear of that,They are not acting normal of course.I have done the full salt treatment as recommended and am doing 70% water changes daily and replacing salt for amount of water replaced.Temp is at 82.i will continue this until all is well,.Any thing else I should be doing?? I have cut back feeding to twice a day as some are eating some are not...I am now convinced that the new fish were not the cause I got them from Chicago Discus where I have purchased all my fish and never had a problem.I believe the reason this happened was something I did in an old persons moment and should have included in my thread.Two days after receiving the fish I wanted to take pics.of them so just before lights out I turned the filters off and took some pics and after down loading them went to bed and forgot to turn the filters back on...I woke up the next morning to find them all huddled together at the top of the tank and immediately realized what I had done.The bacteria seems to have survived as multiple checks have been negative for ammonia and nitrite but with no water flow the o2 was probably getting low and I believe that stressed them out. Probable??i did a large water change that morning but the damage was done.Is full recovery a good possibility?I would like to thank you all for your help especially the quick diagnosis with just one pic. I will update regularly and again Thanks...
Correct!
Glad its looking better. Full recovery is very likely. Just stay the course.
You asked is the filter possible as a cause. .. Possible, yes Probable? I don't know. Its more likely it was from the new fish. It doesn't really matter who the seller is. Fish obtained at different time points from even the same seller can have an issue when they meet...even if they look perfectly fine and came from the best sellers. In the hobby we tend to "blame" the seller of new fish when something happens to the fish in our tank.Sometimes its the existing fish that are the problem. More often than not its not an issue of fault.more of immune systems just working as they are intended. Both these fish groups were healthy, they just carried something that the other had not encountered.
Honestly the cause here is most likely something you already pegged in your first post...
I understand this about the Quarantine,it takes room and patience, but in most cases, quarantine would have prevented this. Quarantine is really as necessary to Discus keeping as water changes, good food, and everything else. I have always preached it.. It doesn't matter who the fish came from... Quarantine, and do it for a very very long time..I have no room for quarantine but purchased these from a very reliable seller.
al
Last edited by brewmaster15; 05-21-2019 at 03:27 PM.
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>>>>>Want a great forum? Participate in it and make one.. it doesnt happen on its own.
Al Sabetta
Simplydiscus LLC Owner
Aquaticsuppliers.com
I take Pics.. click here for my Flickr images
It always hard to admit to our stupid mistakes. God knows, I've made enough stupid mistakes to know. The last time I brought in new fish I knew when I mixed them with my existing fish I was setting myself up for a potential problem. Sure 'nuff, after a few days of everything being perfect I got a bacterial problem. I was prepared because I've been around for a while. I treated with the right thing and didn't suffer any losses.
This was absolutely NOT the fault of the importer. It was nobody's fault but mine because I know how it works. The importer has his favorite exporter or several exporters they work with. The exporter who has his own fish farm, goes to fish farm owners he trusts and buys from them. Everyone along the line believes that their fish are clean. That doesn't mean that that a fish down the line wasn't exposed to a pathogen that was foreign to it. When it meets your fish, who are naive to the pathogen is when fish get sick. I love Chicago Discus. I trust them implicitly. That does not mean that if I expose one of their fish to one of mine neither will get sick.
If your fish don't start acting normally in a few days start treating with Furan II.
Mama Bear
Great comments Al & Liz. Newbies (Me) listen up yo!
Some really good advise to add you may want to wipe down the tank as all that bad slime is sticking to
the walls and floor. Try not to breath in some of the
air as it is probably contagious.
Cliff
Made it through another night,5 are close to acting normal and show no signs of shedding slime.My biggest one is the only one still showing some shedding but he is swimming good and eating a little.I will continue the lg. water changes and salt for a few more days before trying Furan 11 Thanks again for your help...
You're doing well.
Mama Bear
I can tell. I've been there myself so I totally understand. Once, not that long ago I got something called "broken heart syndrome" over a Discus disaster. It's a real medical thing that required a catheter up my groin to take a look at what was going on with my heart. I've been on a beta blocker ever since. Anyone that tells me that that stress over Discus is no big deal, is itchin' for a fight.
Mama Bear
The lesson learned is that a quarantine tank is an absolute requirement for keeping discus. Just about all of us here have gone through an experience similar to this, and have had the same feeling of total regret and complete helplessness watching an entire tank go down. Looks like you're going to get through this, so great. But now is the time to get a quarantine tank.
A fellow discus keeper used to also have kittens for competition. As crazy as it may sound, there are regional and national competitions for kittens. He told me that the kittens would always come back from shows with a respiratory infection. Not because the other kittens were sick, but simply that they were exposed to different bacteria. So all his kittens coming back from the show would sit in nebulizer tents until they got better (you can't make up stuff like this). The same applies if you have an entry in a local, regional and national fish show. All the fish coming back have to go into quarantine.
I'm telling this story because it's not fair to stigmatize any one breeder or importer if you don't quarantine. I buy from many of our sponsors on Simply. I know them, they have a track record with me, and I always quarantine their fish. If I don't, it's my fault, not theirs.
Willie
At my age, everything is irritating.