PLEASE HELP ME

[valery]

I had posted on here about a week or so ago. Post called "discus laying on bottom of tank, not eating". Well, the discus is still laying at the bottom of the tank and not eating! Nobody seemed to know what it was. Where are all the pros in this department? There used to be so much support on this forum. Basically I was taking shots in the dark and am now out of ideas. He is still miraculously alive after so many days.

I have already done:
General cure
2 days Epsom salt
Metro and furan-2

He looked worse to me on the furan-2, so I discontinued after 3 full days of double the dose. Metro was continued for another two days after that. Right now he is in clean water.

Throughout all these treatments I did 50-60% wc per day.

He seems to have absolutely no control of his swim bladder.

I don't know what to do next... Please help me!!! There is no way that nobody knows what to do on here.
7917779178

[lipadj46]

You need to stop discontinuing treatments because they seem to not be snapping out of it right away. Some fish get worse before getting better and some don't get better until a weeks after the meds are stopped). I would let him rest right now in clean water. He may not get better unfortunately. Kanamyacin would be the last and final thing I would try at the full dosage (not the dosage on the bottle). I have a bunch of bulk kanamyacin in the freezer so it would be easy for me. You may not want to spend another $75 on meds though as you will need about this much to fully treat for 7-10 days with daily water changes. Good luck, treating sick fish is more of an art than science unfortunately unless you have a full blown lab at your disposal and even then you have to kill the fish first to see the problem was. Good luck keep us updated.

Edit: On a more positive note when I first started I had 10 discus come down with columnaris and though I lost half of them the ones that pulled through looked quite awful for 3 weeks just floating at the surface fins all rotting away. They got better but it took time.

[PP_GBR]

V:

Often time, the sick fish with serious internal bacterial infection exhibits dark black eye symptom. His eye color changes from bright to darken. When you see this on your fish, it means his prognosis is very poor. If the fish was given the right med when he was first noticed there may be a chance for survival. I'm sorry to break the bad news but whatelse can I say :(. Hate to see you losing the fish.

There is other med you could try is Kanamycin or Kanaplex. You could dose it with Furan 2 together.

Good luck.

[blueluv]

V:

Often time, the sick fish with serious internal bacterial infection exhibits dark black eye symptom. His eye color changes from bright to darken. When you see this on your fish, it means his prognosis is very poor. If the fish was given the right med when he was first noticed there may be a chance for survival. I'm sorry to break the bad news but whatelse can I say :(. Hate to see you losing the fish.

There is other med you could try is Kanamycin or Kanaplex. You could dose it with Furan 2 together.

Good luck.

You've mentioned this before about the eye turning black. Are talking about the whole eye, because the stress bar in the face shows up in the eye.

[Aquariumlover8]

Temp is a great healer of discus. I'm just sayin, meds are expensive and this has worked for me ever time if I catch it soon enough:
2-3 days in a QT tank at 93 degrees

I through a blanket over it to keep it dark and quiet. They don't usually eat during this time but it is an effective treatment. I do tend to hover over them checking them several times a day to see how they are doing. I've never tried this with discus less than 3", it might be too much for younger ones. I've also caught the diseases earlyish about the time one would start staring at the corner all day or perhaps start to darken but never beyond that it might be too much for a fish that has taken to laying on the bottom, which could be a symptom of environmental stress and have nothing to do with illness. ( I had a friends discus all lay on the bottom and after a lot of detective work found out it was because they were getting a new roof put on thier house and the discus could stand the vibration from above!) Anyway I've treated Hole in the head and tapeworms this way with great success. Just my 2 cents. It's like giving your discus a fever, just like we get when we're sick...

[nc0gnet0]

why would you treat this fish with Metro? Furan-2 is for esternal infections, this fish has an internal swim bladder issue. Only a couple of meds that should have even been considered. kanamycin is your best chance, unless your willing to go for the injectables.

Rick

[valery]

You need to stop discontinuing treatments because they seem to not be snapping out of it right away. Some fish get worse before getting better and some don't get better until a weeks after the meds are stopped). I would let him rest right now in clean water. He may not get better unfortunately. Kanamyacin would be the last and final thing I would try at the full dosage (not the dosage on the bottle). I have a bunch of bulk kanamyacin in the freezer so it would be easy for me. You may not want to spend another $75 on meds though as you will need about this much to fully treat for 7-10 days with daily water changes. Good luck, treating sick fish is more of an art than science unfortunately unless you have a full blown lab at your disposal and even then you have to kill the fish first to see the problem was. Good luck keep us updated.

Edit: On a more positive note when I first started I had 10 discus come down with columnaris and though I lost half of them the ones that pulled through looked quite awful for 3 weeks just floating at the surface fins all rotting away. They got better but it took time.

Thanks Rick. The fish is now in clean water for the second day. I feel as though hes a little more active today. Trying to get up a little more often, but it might just be me clouded with hope. I am thinking of starting kana today. All I can get at the moment is Kanaplex, kana from angelplus is not an option anymore as I am in Canada. When I order food from them, the customs can be unpredictable.

What kanaplex dosage should I go with? it is only 40% kanamycin I believe..

[valery]

V:

Often time, the sick fish with serious internal bacterial infection exhibits dark black eye symptom. His eye color changes from bright to darken. When you see this on your fish, it means his prognosis is very poor. If the fish was given the right med when he was first noticed there may be a chance for survival. I'm sorry to break the bad news but whatelse can I say :(. Hate to see you losing the fish.

There is other med you could try is Kanamycin or Kanaplex. You could dose it with Furan 2 together.

Good luck.

Unfortunately I am unable to tell the fish's eye color at all, as he is a pigeon. The eyes are orange just like the rest of them.

[valery]

Temp is a great healer of discus. I'm just sayin, meds are expensive and this has worked for me ever time if I catch it soon enough:
2-3 days in a QT tank at 93 degrees

I through a blanket over it to keep it dark and quiet. They don't usually eat during this time but it is an effective treatment. I do tend to hover over them checking them several times a day to see how they are doing. I've never tried this with discus less than 3", it might be too much for younger ones. I've also caught the diseases earlyish about the time one would start staring at the corner all day or perhaps start to darken but never beyond that it might be too much for a fish that has taken to laying on the bottom, which could be a symptom of environmental stress and have nothing to do with illness. ( I had a friends discus all lay on the bottom and after a lot of detective work found out it was because they were getting a new roof put on thier house and the discus could stand the vibration from above!) Anyway I've treated Hole in the head and tapeworms this way with great success. Just my 2 cents. It's like giving your discus a fever, just like we get when we're sick...

Thanks aquariumlover. Because I am unsure of what this is, I was a bit worried of raising the temp to 90's. Right now he is in 84.
Would 90's potentially cause more bacteria to develop, if this is bacterial?

[valery]

why would you treat this fish with Metro? Furan-2 is for esternal infections, this fish has an internal swim bladder issue. Only a couple of meds that should have even been considered. kanamycin is your best chance, unless your willing to go for the injectables.

Rick

Thanks Rick, I was advised to try metro first. I went with it. Rick, I can only grab kanaplex. What dosage would you recommend for that?
Fish is in 20g quarantine, I can lower water to 10g and hopefully save some money as I know ill need to dose a whole lot of the kanaplex.

[PP_GBR]

Chris

The black bar across the eye will not change but eye color would change. Even on BD, her eyes went from bright red to dark brown(almost black). When I saw this on her, she is a gonner. BT was doing the same thing. His eyes changed to dark brown.

Observation, observation. Pay attention to your fish on their good days. When they get sick you'll notice the differences in them from their good old days.

Unless your have more fish than you could count but for most ppl, there should not be an issue.

[PP_GBR]

Val

Observation is the key. You own the fish, you'll know your fish better.

Here's the link for the med

http://www.petsandponds.com/scripts/search.asp

Vern Archer suggests 360 mg of Kanaplex (2 scoops per 3 gal). This equals to 1200 mg per 10 gl. Don and Rick will chime in if they think it's not enough.

HTH

[PP_GBR]

Val

When you have some time explore this site:

http://www.archersdiscus.com/disease_21.html

[lipadj46]

Val

Observation is the key. You own the fish, you'll know your fish better.

Here's the link for the med

http://www.petsandponds.com/scripts/search.asp

Vern Archer suggests 360 mg of Kanaplex (2 scoops per 3 gal). This equals to 1200 mg per 10 gl. Don and Rick will chime in if they think it's not enough.

HTH

I'm not on my computer at the moment so I can't do a proper search, but I'm pretty sure the recommended dosage per Noga (maybe) is ballpark 300 mg per gallon. Don't quote me on that though. If you search my user name and kanamyacin it should turn up.

sent from an undisclosed location using morse code

[nc0gnet0]

Not a big fan of kanaplex terrilbly expensive for what you get. For 100 % kanamycin the dosage is as follows:

Dose at 1/2 tsp per 10 gallons. Re-treat every 48 hours for 10 days. Do a minimum 25% water change before each retreatment.

Kanamycin Sulfate is one of the only antibiotics that is easily absorbed through the skin, so is frequently used for internal problems. It's an aminoglycoside that works on many gram negative and some gram positive bacteria. Especially good for aerobic gram negative bacteria like columnaris. It works well in saltwater and higher pH. Combines well with Nitrofurazone or Bifuran. Some prefer to make an ultra broad spectrum treatment for bacteria, by combining Kanamycin Sulfate, Bifuran and Metronidazole


your going to have to adjust the kanaplex dosage to make up for the fact it is only 40% kanamycin. In extreme cases you can double the dosage to 1 teaspoon per 10 gallons.


Rick

[lipadj46]

I double checked the kanamyacin dosage (per Noga): Noga states 190-380 mg/gallon. Which is about 10x's more than the dosage in the directions on a bottle of kanamyacin sulfate

[valery]

Thank you for the input everyone. I just dosed 216mg/gallon. And that's of the kanaplex. So at 40% of that I am not even at 100mg/ gallon. I know I need more. Will have to make my way out to the lfs and dose stronger tomorrow.

Wish there was a quick way to get pure kana in canada. I called pharmacies but for some reason nobody here sells to the public.

[valery]

How long should this kanamycin treatment go on for? At 50% wc per day, do I redose full amount all over again or just what I took out?

[valery]

Disregard previous dosage. Going to lfs now, so dosed the whole package for 10g. Puts me at 200mg of pure kanamycin per gallon.

Please just answer my previous q.

[valery]

I double checked the kanamyacin dosage (per Noga): Noga states 190-380 mg/gallon. Which is about 10x's more than the dosage in the directions on a bottle of kanamyacin sulfate

Thank you Lipadj

[valery]

Not a big fan of kanaplex terrilbly expensive for what you get. For 100 % kanamycin the dosage is as follows:

Dose at 1/2 tsp per 10 gallons. Re-treat every 48 hours for 10 days. Do a minimum 25% water change before each retreatment.

Kanamycin Sulfate is one of the only antibiotics that is easily absorbed through the skin, so is frequently used for internal problems. It's an aminoglycoside that works on many gram negative and some gram positive bacteria. Especially good for aerobic gram negative bacteria like columnaris. It works well in saltwater and higher pH. Combines well with Nitrofurazone or Bifuran. Some prefer to make an ultra broad spectrum treatment for bacteria, by combining Kanamycin Sulfate, Bifuran and Metronidazole


your going to have to adjust the kanaplex dosage to make up for the fact it is only 40% kanamycin. In extreme cases you can double the dosage to 1 teaspoon per 10 gallons.


Rick

Thanks Rick. Just confused about the 48 hrs. Does that mean no water change for 48 hrs? I'm a little worried about the ammonia, tank is bb.

Also, temperature is 84. Should I raise it?

[lipadj46]

How long should this kanamycin treatment go on for? At 50% wc per day, do I redose full amount all over again or just what I took out?

It depends how much you have and how your water quality is. I usually do a complete water change, do a complete dose and then repeat water change/dosing every 48 hours for 10 days. Sometimes I do a complete water change and redose daily if the bio filter is completely blown away. You can use prime/safe/etc to neutralize ammonia, measure the ammonia and dose enough to take care of it every 24 hours. I would lower temp to 82-80F as we are assuming bacterial infection.

[nc0gnet0]

NO, if anything lower it to 82 degrees. Raising the temp is typically done to combat parasites, not bacterial infections. If the fish is not eating everyother day water changes shold be ok and lessen the cost of the meds. However, if you dont have the fish in a cycled tank, that could change the equation completely and you may have to do a lot more as far as water changes are concerned. In this case you have to put back in whatever you take out as far as the anti-biotic is concerned.

Your other option is to get some oxytetracylcine in liquid form and inject the fish. I beleive the main page has some information on treating this way. If not, you might want to pm Al for some instructions and or advice on the proper way to go about it.

Rick

[nc0gnet0]

http://www.fishdoc.co.uk/treatments/injections.htm

[PP_GBR]

I stumpled upon this thread awhile back. I copy the link here so you could read it up.

http://forum.simplydiscus.com/showthread.php?52622-bacterial-infection-bloated-belly-and-white-pus

If you could find an aquatic vet to treat your fish, it's another option for you. Please keep us posted here.

[valery]

It depends how much you have and how your water quality is. I usually do a complete water change, do a complete dose and then repeat water change/dosing every 48 hours for 10 days. Sometimes I do a complete water change and redose daily if the bio filter is completely blown away. You can use prime/safe/etc to neutralize ammonia, measure the ammonia and dose enough to take care of it every 24 hours. I would lower temp to 82-80F as we are assuming bacterial infection.

Ok. I am using prime. Lowered temp to 82. Continuing kanamycin at 200mg/g Today I saw him poop. Not sure if its a good or bad sign. I will post picture below.

[valery]

NO, if anything lower it to 82 degrees. Raising the temp is typically done to combat parasites, not bacterial infections. If the fish is not eating everyother day water changes shold be ok and lessen the cost of the meds. However, if you dont have the fish in a cycled tank, that could change the equation completely and you may have to do a lot more as far as water changes are concerned. In this case you have to put back in whatever you take out as far as the anti-biotic is concerned.

Your other option is to get some oxytetracylcine in liquid form and inject the fish. I beleive the main page has some information on treating this way. If not, you might want to pm Al for some instructions and or advice on the proper way to go about it.

Rick

Thanks Rick. My tank is not completely cycled. So I'm using prime and water from my planted. Keeping an eye on ammonia, nitrites and nitrates. Doing water changes daily (sometimes 2/day) and redosing what I take out. It's costing me a lot but I just love this fish so much I can't lose him. Saw him poop today. Please look at the below photo and let me know what you think.

[valery]

I stumpled upon this thread awhile back. I copy the link here so you could read it up.

http://forum.simplydiscus.com/showthread.php?52622-bacterial-infection-bloated-belly-and-white-pus

If you could find an aquatic vet to treat your fish, it's another option for you. Please keep us posted here.

Thank you. I'm quite worried about the injections. Scares me. Please see pic of poop below. I'd love some input

[valery]

Here is a picture of what he's pooped out today. It has an odd color and almost looks like blood worms. Please keep in mind he hasn't eaten in two weeks. What do you think it is? Good sign or bad sign? 79180

[nc0gnet0]

he has an internal infection.

[valery]

he has an internal infection.

So I'm treating for the right thing? All good?

[LizStreithorst]

You are treating correctly but internal infections that have been going on for a long time don't often have a good outcome. Steel yourself to the possibility that you might loose this fish.

[Kal-El]

You are treating correctly but internal infections that have been going on for a long time don't often have a good outcome. Steel yourself to the possibility that you might loose this fish.

I agree with LizStreithorst. If you catch internal infection early and treat it, the fish has better chances of doing a full recovery. Fish dealing with internal issue for a long time never seems to recover and you'll eventually have to cull it or the fish will eventually die on it's own. Hopefully you have some luck and get this guy to do a full recovery. Good luck.

[valery]

You are treating correctly but internal infections that have been going on for a long time don't often have a good outcome. Steel yourself to the possibility that you might loose this fish.

Thanks Liz. I'll continue doing best I can an let nature take its course.

[valery]

I agree with LizStreithorst. If you catch internal infection early and treat it, the fish has better chances of doing a full recovery. Fish dealing with internal issue for a long time never seems to recover and you'll eventually have to cull it or the fish will eventually die on it's own. Hopefully you have some luck and get this guy to do a full recovery. Good luck.

Thank you. I'm still hopeful, I don't think I could cull this guy.

[PP_GBR]

Val

I won't comment on the poop. Let nature take its course. Good luck Val.

[wasc]

At least he poops. My beautiful fish died with a big stomach and can't poop because of internal blockage in the intestines with internal parasites. The fish was fully healthy and in 1 day she died !!! this is the last minutes before death , she was still looking very beautiful and healthy and after she dies I felt like **** and want to punch the walls I felt really upset because I raised them till fries with my hands and can't do anything just watched her dying....My mistake was not examining the fish if she's feeding or pooping white or other sympthoms.. Examining is very vital in discus.

http://www.discuscu.com/files/btnmdsccm.jpg

[valery]

Hi all quick update.

It is now day 8 of the kana treatment. The picture of the poop I posted last week, well he has been pooping that non stop. Long pieces, few inches at a time now. He is still alive and looks normal as before, tries to get up a little bit and sometimes gets his balance. Most of the time though, he is still on his side.

Tomorrow is the last day of treatment. If he's pooping that stuff still on day 8, should I maybe add some Epsom with the kana for the final day?

[lipadj46]

I would treat a full 10 days then rest him in clean water, not sure epsom salts will help.

[LizStreithorst]

The Epsom salts won't hurt.