Scratches or fungal infection on skin of Blue?

[Contrarian]

Problem

1. Please explain the problems with your fish. When did you notice the problems and did anything unusual happen that you think started them?
I am curious to know if the blue male discusb in the picture attached has some scratches after recent battles with other makes it scratches possibly from wood in tank? This is the only fish with an issue and it just suddenly appeared recently.

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).
White scratches on scales as seen picture.

3. What medications/ treatments have you already tried and what were the results. Include dosage and duration of treatment.
None as of yet looking for advice


Tank/Water

4. Tank size and ages, numbers and sizes of fish.
150 gal with 50 gal sump with refugium.

5. Water change regime (What percentage and how often).
30% change every 5-7 days.

6. How long has tank been running? Is it bare bottom? If you have substrate, what type and how deep is it?
Tank has been running since April 2018. Planted tank with mixture of plant soil and sand substrate.


7. Do you age your water? If you do for how long and what is the ph swing.
For 90% of it it is aged RO/DI H2O. 10% is top water that has been dechlorinated but not aged. Not much of a pH swing at all keeping it under two tenths of a percent swing.

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 use SeaChem prime concentrate

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 82° F__

- ph 6.6

- ammonia reading 0 ppm_

- nitrite reading 0 ppm

- nitrate reading under 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.

- well water ____

- municipal water 10%

- RO water 90%

Supplement with Seachem Discus Trace Elements after all water changes.

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.

Homemade beef heart and seafood mix supplementing with spinach kelp seaweed and other trace elements based on recipes of breeders fed every morning.
multiple feedings of live white worms that I have cultured as well as black worms that I purchased online from Eastern aquatics.


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.

[danotaylor]

Looks like he got stuck behind something and was damaged wiggling out.
Is your test kit used by date good? Going by your food choices & feeding schedule a weekly 30% water change and nitrates <10 is impossible as they would constantly be climbing. For example let's say on water change day your nitrates are 10, you remove 30% of the water effectively reducing the nitrates to 7. Over the next week they gain 1.5/day, and they're at 17 the next 30% water change day, and so on. Without a near 100% weekly change nitrates never get close to 0 and are therefore are always climbing.
All that to say, either your test kit is out of date, or something else is up...

[Contrarian]

Typo - 90% h20 changes every week or 30% every 2 days
Also you don't think this is White Cotton Slime Stains?
At the point any reason to quart and treat?

[danotaylor]

Ok gotcha, that makes better sense of your numbers
I have personally never heard of an aquarium disease called white cotton slime stains. The marks look like it has been trapped behind a filter pipe, rock or wood and the fish has wriggled free. The sudden appearance of the marks suggest an injury of some sort as well.
Not sure how this would go in your planted tank, but I would add three tablespoons of salt per 10 gal just to make sure no bacterial infection took advantage of the open scratches. I've never used "stress coat" but I wonder if that might be beneficial also...

[Contrarian]

If I put salt in my show tank that would kill all of my plants lol. White cotton is a more common fungal infection. I typically treat with an antibiotic like tetracycline in an isolated hospital tank or bucket.
I have multiple stumps in my tank that he could've scratched on but it seems a bit excessive leading me to ask others experienced in discus fungal infections etc to comment if they think it is anything warranting immediate treatment or use common sense and watch him for now.

[AquaticNerd]

I have to agree with Daniel on this one. The shapes of the abrasions definitely looks like the fish got stuck somewhere and scratched pretty much their entire body on the way out. It's also possible that it simply got spooked and darted off in the tank and ended up hitting some decor. What you'll notice is that a day or two after the scrape, you'll see some white "cotton" looking stuff around the scratches (and you might even notice some 'bubbles'). This is the slime coat working overtime in order to cover the wound and help start healing it. After about a week or two, you'll notice the white going away and scales growing back in. The recommendation for salt is spot on as well - it'll help ward off any bacterial infection that may try to work its way in to those open wounds.

In that low of a concentration, the salt won't harm your plants.

[Contrarian]

Thank you for the insight. Without both of your input feels like driving through a tunnel with the headlights severely dimmed. I'm told by many others that tonic salt for freshwater fish is a bit like aspirin for humans: both medicines have many beneficial uses, but neither should be administered routinely just for the sake of it hence my hesitancy in my show tank. Please note I did not let you guys know that I have a large community tank containing some salt-sensitive species, such as my pleco and Corey catfish's which I absolutely adore.

I thought to heed your advice and utilize salt by doing dips with the only fish impacted for 2-3 hours in a hospital tank or equivalent heated/aerated kmbucket. I want to reiterate that I respect both of your opinion and I am not saying whatsoever that either of you are wrong. I'm certainly not trying to be a know it all also so if I come across like that then please let me correct that impression as I really do not know it all and I am extremely humble in that sense. I'm only hesitant because I wouldn't want to take the chance in my show/planted tank. L I humbly accept and appreciate your advice. Luckily, I only have one discus out of many other fish in my tank that has this issue. He's also six to seven inches so he won't be that hard to catch LOL should I decide to go with the salt treatment. Perhaps I'm being overly conservative but I'm a discus greek acting like a mom Again all of your thoughts are really appreciated!!!

[Second Hand Pat]

Hi Contrarian, salt is an excellent suggestion but you could try a week of 50% or better water changes. Clean water can help with something like this if you are willing to give it a go.
Pat

[Iminit]

I’m with salt too. Qt tank and salt. Definitely not the show tank. Another question do you have a pleco in the tank? What are the other residents?

[Contrarian]

I’m with salt too. Qt tank and salt. Definitely not the show tank. Another question do you have a pleco in the tank? What are the other residents?

10 Blue Diamond Discus
5 Sunset Red Discus
Shoal of 7 Clown loaches (Alpha female 6.5" + Six 3-5")
1 common pleco - 9"
1 siamese algae eater
17 Cory catfish (4 green, 3 Panda, 5 Sterbsi, 4 pepper 1 Albino)
30 assorted Tetra's (Ruby Red nose, cardinal, Black, Serpae, Lampeye)

[bluelagoon]

Post #3. Are WC's 90% once a week or 30% every 2 days. If it's 30% every three days, that is not 90% new water in the tank in a week. Some of that 30% is water you changed 2 days prior to each WC is also removed.

[Alpha40]

I am sorry to hear about what happened, maybe it is a fungal infection, try to change water or clean the tank.

[Contrarian]

Post #3. Are WC's 90% once a week or 30% every 2 days. If it's 30% every three days, that is not 90% new water in the tank in a week. Some of that 30% is water you changed 2 days prior to each WC is also removed.

I understand. Thanks for the education on water changes! I'm changing 30-35% of my Total volume every 2 days... Not every 3. If you have an opinion on the fish that's why I posted.

[Contrarian]

Update: Fish is healing up quickly and it is looking like it is just scratches as many ofyou orig surmised. Thank you for the help.

[danotaylor]

Good news mate.. the kind we love to hear