New discus group are sick. Help

[dkeef]

Please complete thus questionnaire if your fish are sick (copy and paste). The more details you can provide, the better we are able to diagnose and help you treat your sick fish.

DISEASE QUESTIONNAIRE


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?

Got 5 new discus from simply member. Has been about 2 weeks since. First week they were very stressed from bullying by other fish.

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).

One altum was dark and stopped eating after a week. This week color is bright again but still not eating well. Last night noticed two altum had popeye. One more on both eyes and other less on one eye. White angel isnt eating and has sunken belly. Leopard ss has one fungal growth on its eye.

3. What medications/ treatments have you already tried and what were the results. Include dosage and duration of treatment.

0 meds. Did 80% water change(last one was 4 days ago) Plan to do every other day 80% wc for a week. If symptoms stay then wanna try meds in hospital tank.


Tank/Water

4. Tank size and ages, numbers and sizes of fish.
300gal. Planted tank set up 2 months ago.
Have 13 discus. Size 4" to 6.5"

5. Water change regime (What percentage and how often).
Do 80% weekly water change. Plan to do twice a week from now on.

6. How long has tank been running? Is it bare bottom? If you have substrate, what type and how deep is it?
2months. Planted tank with safe t sorb substrate. 3-6" deep.

7. Do you age your water? If you do for how long and what is the ph swing.
No. Tap ph is 7.8 and tank ph is 7.7 without co2 and 7.1 with co2.

8. 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 _____84

- ph _____ 7.1 - 7.7

- ammonia reading ____0

- nitrite reading ____0

- nitrate reading ____10

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 ____100

- RO water ____


9. Any new fish, plants or inverts added recently.
Just 5 discus from simply member. 4 of them sick.
All existing 8 discus from kenny are healthy

10. 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.

[DiscusLoverJeff]

Sorry to hear that. Can you QT the sick ones? One common fix for popeye is daily 80% water changes.

Different types of pop eye require different treatments. Pop eye caused by trauma can often heal by itself if given optimal conditions. Move the fish with pop eye to a tank where it can be alone and won't get stressed by other fish. Make sure to keep perfect water quality in the tank. Adding a tablespoon of Epson salt for every 5 gallon of water in your tank may help the recovery.

Pop eye caused by environmental factors can often be dealt with in a similar fashion. It is very important to improve water quality and other environmental issues to avoid more fish getting sick. Fish will never get well if you don't improve the environment.

Bacterial pop eye can be hard to treat as it is an internal infection and internal infections are always harder to treat than external since it is harder to get the meds to the place where they are needed. Treat bacterial pop eye with a broad spectrum antibiotic. That is usually effective if the infection hasn't progressed too far already. A fish given antibiotics can recover even from severe cases, but the more severe the case is the harder it will be to successfully treat it.

[dkeef]

How long should i do wc without meds til i have to start meds?

[PP_GBR]

Huge tank and thin stock = big fight. You should add more discus (Kennys' of course) in the tank and it will save lot of headache.

[dkeef]

Yup thats my plan. When i had over 50-60 cichlids in there. There was no fight.
Plan on 20-25 discus.

[lipadj46]

How long should i do wc without meds til i have to start meds?

I know you are trying to do it your way but I thinks it time to start the daily water changes and move them to a QT tank and maybe up your maintenance game a bit. I would also QT in the future, but the symptoms you describe generally are from less than pristine water. Kanamyacin is a good antibiotic that is absorbed through the skin but you need to dose at something like 10x's the dosage on the bottle, furan 2 can help too and can be mixed with the prior. If the water changes don't turn them around in the next few days then I would start meds.

[dkeef]

Ok thats what i will do.
I have a spare 20 gal and 26 gal tank.
Also 40gal breeder tank but i have dither fish in it for qt.
How many discus can i have in it?
Again i plan to do twice a week 80% wc in future.

As far as meds, i have metro, pp, tetra parasiteguard and clout.
Can i use any?
So furan 2 or kanamycin. Where do i get it from.

[Etek]

So that this doesn't happen in th future. Did you QT the new fish before adding to your existing stock? Are the new fish from different source. Usually will have problems adding fish from difft sources especially without an extended QT period.

[a volar]

David post the pictures, as many as you can.

[PP_GBR]

D

Sound like you have new fish and new tank syndrome. Move the 5 fish to the 20 QT. Add 2TBSP aquarium/rock salt per 10 gal. Observe the fish for few days before dosing meds. By the time you're done with this, the money you save on shipping is probably not enough to cover the meds especially Kanamycin plus your time and headache. LOL.

Post some pix please.

[a volar]

20 gal tank is too small for a five 5" discus, you don’t know for how many days they need to be in hospital tank........... again, post some pics.

[PP_GBR]

Absolutely agree. The 20 gal is easier for him to dose the meds if it's neccesary. 26 gal is odd and he need to use a calculator and a scale.


David

Is is a 26 or 29gl?

[dkeef]

talked to kenny and he suggested i treat the entire tank. cuz He thinks it could be bacterial infection and in that case any new fish added will keep getting sick.
recommended furan 2.
amazon sells 850g furan 2 bulk jar for $80. this treats 3300 gal.
again, they arent eating but color and behavior looks normal. still all the big guys are still fighting for supremacy.
i have 20tall and 26gal bowfront tank.

heres some pics:

altum with popeye??? i still cant tell for sure...
http://i1283.photobucket.com/albums/a547/dkreef/null_zpseb982c40.jpg (http://s1283.photobucket.com/user/dkreef/media/null_zpseb982c40.jpg.html)

http://i1283.photobucket.com/albums/a547/dkreef/null_zps4dbaea2a.jpg (http://s1283.photobucket.com/user/dkreef/media/null_zps4dbaea2a.jpg.html)

leopard SS with something...but hes eating well...
http://i1283.photobucket.com/albums/a547/dkreef/null_zps8d81fb7a.jpg (http://s1283.photobucket.com/user/dkreef/media/null_zps8d81fb7a.jpg.html)

[dennis waage]

I think thats bacterial. No time to waste.

Good luck

[dkeef]

I have to order meds and wont be here til next week.
What can i do til then?

Does anyone know if furan 2 is safe for bb and plants???

[lipadj46]

Furan 2 can melt plants, does not kill your bio filter.

[dkeef]

Kenny thought doing daily water change is useless at this point. Reason being that if water not being prestine was the cause then all of my discus would be sick. Not just select group.
Only ones sick are the new ones i got from ismael.
All kennys fish are fine and eating well.
So he thinks its cuz new ones didnt have immunity.

Im wondering if i need to water changes again til meds arrive.

Good news is the bump on leopard ss eye(last pic) has gone down in size.
Still think 2 altums have popeyes. Still same size bulging.
White angel belly looks more round now.
Yet 2 altums and white angel still arent eating
Those three are in back corner swimming back and forth and my original big cobalt is alightly bullying them.

[PP_GBR]

David

Tetra Fungus Guard is a good sub but it will cost you your wallet. Petsmart sells TFG.

[PP_GBR]

Also TFG will stain your tank, Furan 2 won't.

[dkeef]

Then it wont work. Gonna need furan 2.

[PP_GBR]

D

Were the card shipped to you from Singapore directly? Did you cross contaminate the tanks?

[dkeef]

none of the dither fish from singapore are in the main tank with discus. all in QT tank.
i tried not to cross contaminate the two...used separate net, containers.
but i did have to use same python water change hose...but after i vacummed from qt tank, i ran tap water thru line and i used two different vacumm tubes for each tank. so i after cleaning qt tank, i ran tap thru the line to qt tank to fill then changed the vacumm plastic tube and then sucked water from main discus tank then added tap.
i have done this ever since i add kennys discus.

[alcastro]

David i bought from other members in the past and always they reacted in a neg. way slime coat comes off or they get dark wont eat it's the difference in the water ph, tds, and a trip in a bucket, after a few days they all adapted even kenny's, the two ring leopars i just got are darker now.

[dkeef]

David i bought from other members in the past and always they reacted in a neg. way slime coat comes off or they get dark wont eat it's the difference in the water ph, tds, and a trip in a bucket, after a few days they all adapted even kenny's, the two ring leopars i just got are darker now.

Al, thing is first few days, they were getting bullied a lot but after few days it got little better and they were all coming out eating again. then this week, those 3 stopped eating. so im still concerned...

[PP_GBR]

I understand your concerns but you need to leave them alone, give them some time to adjust to your huge tank.

[wdeleon01]

David i bought from other members in the past and always they reacted in a neg. way slime coat comes off or they get dark wont eat it's the difference in the water ph, tds, and a trip in a bucket, after a few days they all adapted even kenny's, the two ring leopars i just got are darker now.

Al great avatar, you've come a long way. Look now your doing your own breeding.

[alcastro]

Thanks Walter I have learned from all of you, going to change my main tank to BB it's better less problems.

[dkeef]

I have a feeling i may follow your steps al. Even tho i say no way now to breeding or bare bottom lol.

So everyone back to my problems?
Furan 2 ok for my tank and should i do it?

[JERRYKEVIN]

David, Why are you going to dose your big tank when only the new fish are sick? Move new fish into hospital tank and see how they do. Clean, warm, water for a few days and then if no change dose. Just my two cents. After you move fish I would do a massive water change on big tank. Trying to put meds in a 300 gallon tank is going to be a nightmare. If it is bacteria watch your temp

[dkeef]

This is reasoning from kenny. Cuz if one group got sick then whole tank needs to be treated for all future fish so that they dont get sick again.
Man i hope i could just treat them in separate tank.

[PP_GBR]

D

Follow Kenny's direction. In the meantime, observe the sick fish closely. If they are getting worse before the med arrives, then you need to pull them out to treat in QT. If they're OK until then, treat the whole tank.

[dkeef]

good thing i checked furan 2. i found out it will melt plants.
so i cant treat whole tank with furan 2.
any other meds recommended for bacterial infection?

[PP_GBR]

David

There is another med acriflavin but you have to check with someone like Rick. I just know from reading @ CLC discus site.

[dkeef]

by the way, whats diagnosis for fish with sunken belly and not eating?
Think i read to treat with metro if there is stringly white feces with this condition.

[Second Hand Pat]

Dave, at this point and with treating in the main tank have you considered removing the plants? either temporarily or do without the plants for a while until you get a good handle on the discus? You may need to decide what is important now.

[dkeef]

pulling out plant at this point is almost full tank redo and havent considered this.
if the entire discus colony was sick then i would have to think about it but not for 3 sick ones.
gonna try qt for now.
but if i do decide to part with plants then that means im gonna pull out 400lbs of substrates and im not ready to do that yet.
something to think about in future tho.

[nikond70s]

put the discus in spare tank for QT? so u dont gotta take out the plants

if u care more about the discus. its a good idea to change substrate to sand. and add less plants. this would also give your discus a lot more room to swim. sand isnt as good as ur substrate u have now. but it will grow plants just as well since you have co2 and most of ur plants are low light. and the sand will also brigten up your discus.

[dkeef]

Today i fed them live blackworms and all of them came out eating like pigs.
Maybe they arent sick?

I noticed on my friends discus that some have eyes that are more protruded.
It may not be a popeye then.

Wow lets see what happens...

[PP_GBR]

Maybe it's a new fish syndrome LOL

[dkeef]

I hope so. Well its at least a good sign that they r eating well

[dkeef]

Even if i dont need meds now, should i keep furan 2 in stock?
So far i got metro,pp, parasiteguard and clout at home.

[lipadj46]

Even if i dont need meds now, should i keep furan 2 in stock?
So far i got metro,pp, parasiteguard and clout at home.

Furan-2 is a good one to keep in stock. I keep a big bottle in the freezer along with metro and flubendazole.

[PP_GBR]

David

How are you new fish doing now? There is another med you should stock but they are out of stock now. The store is in Westminster, CA. Thanks to Mee (SD member) helped me to translate it.