not eating

[slp]

I have a 75 gal tank with 8 discus. I have had them for about 8 weeks. I do about 80% water changes daily. All of my fish seems to be healthy and happy, except for one. He spendS a lot of time in a corner of the tank and will not eat. AlThough i did see him eat a little of the beef mix/blood worm mix. I feed hans beef mix, blood worms, flakes i got from hans, als black worms, and marineland color enhancing flakes. I feed 4 or 5times a day. All of the other fish attack whatever I give them. he does swim around the tsnk but spends a lot of time in the corner.I do not see anything wrong with him. He doesn't get dark. All of his fins look good. His eyes are normal shape. There are no spots on his body. His respiration looks normal. The others don't pick on him. This has been going on for almost a week. Any ideas?

Steve

[DISCUS STU]

You may want to fill out the disease questionaire in the diseases section. Does it's abdomen look distended or bloated? It may also have an internal infection.

[alron2]

What are you water parameters? Does he ever rub himself on the sponse filter or anything else? What color are his eyes?
Ron

[slp]

You may want to fill out the disease questionaire in the diseases section. Does it's abdomen look distended or bloated? It may also have an internal infection.

Not bloated nor does his abdomen look distended.

[slp]

Water is ammonia 0, nitrates between 0 and .25, nitrate 25ppm. He does not rub himself against anything. His eyes are clear yellow with black center.

[slp]

You may want to fill out the disease questionaire in the diseases section. Does it's abdomen look distended or bloated? It may also have an internal infection.

Not distended or bloated

[FishFanMan]

You may want to consider setting up a hospital tank just for him. I have a discus that acted the same way. I treated him metro for 1 week without feeding him. Then slowly ramped up his feeding. He recovered after about 2 weeks. IMHO, better to try to help him than to see it slowly die.

[krislewis3]

I have a 75 gal tank with 8 discus. I have had them for about 8 weeks. I do about 80% water changes daily. All of my fish seems to be healthy and happy, except for one. He spendS a lot of time in a corner of the tank and will not eat. AlThough i did see him eat a little of the beef mix/blood worm mix. I feed hans beef mix, blood worms, flakes i got from hans, als black worms, and marineland color enhancing flakes. I feed 4 or 5times a day. All of the other fish attack whatever I give them. he does swim around the tsnk but spends a lot of time in the corner.I do not see anything wrong with him. He doesn't get dark. All of his fins look good. His eyes are normal shape. There are no spots on his body. His respiration looks normal. The others don't pick on him. This has been going on for almost a week. Any ideas?

Steve

As stu advised, your best bet is to fill out a disease form.

[cellingson]

what does his poop look like?

[slp]

Well it has been three weeks since I posted the original thread. The same fish has still not eaten. He still swims around, sHow's no signs of distress. The only sign he is exhibiting is that he isn't growing. All of the other fish in the tank are at least twice as big as him. Still doing 80-90% water changes each day. One responder to my original post asked what his poop looked like. No food going in - no poop coming out. I will update each week until he either starts eating or expires.
What is puzzling is that he shows no signs of being starved. I am going to try to attach a picture. It is king of blurry as I can't get him to cooperate when I take the picture.86867

[slp]

Well it has been three weeks since I posted the original thread. The same fish has still not eaten. He still swims around, sHow's no signs of distress. The only sign he is exhibiting is that he isn't growing. All of the other fish in the tank are at least twice as big as him. Still doing 80-90% water changes each day. One responder to my original post asked what his poop looked like. No food going in - no poop coming out. I will update each week until he either starts eating or expires.
What is puzzling is that he shows no signs of being starved. I am going to try to attach a picture. It is king of blurry as I can't get him to cooperate when I take the picture.86867

A better picture.86868

[Driftwood Mike]

Far from an expert, but had a similar situation. Picked up a little one right after Thanksgiving, tried everything you did too, finally gave in and went to a LFS and got some live black worms. Didn't work right off the bat, but finally ate a couple and I mean two worms, but it was a start. Still would not eat the flake they got in the morning. It would float right past him to the point I thought he was blind. He started to eat more and more live black worms but nothing else, so he basically ate once a day. Wasn't growing but otherwise fine. Now I'm thinking I created a monster. Last month or so I noticed he was really starting to grow and to my surprise he started eating the flake as well. He is growing very quickly now and eating everything. I think the appetite naturally grows with the growth of the fish. Yep still feeding the live black but if I stopped I would not worry anymore, he fights back now against much larger mates, holds his own at the worm cup and has doubled in size in six weeks. I know most people will say not to feed live black worms but better that then the fish dying. Keep them real clean, rinse, rinse, rinse and I feed the worms flake, aquatbits, whatever. Can keep them going for a month, maybe longer but by then I run out. I figure I can get the fish to eat what I want by feeding it to the worms and the fish eating them. Good luck, don't give up, hope this helps!

[Driftwood Mike]

Sorry, ate for the first time Christmas Day, so it was several weeks.

[Kyla]

when small discus stop eating they lose weight fast. if yours looks this good after so long i am guessing it is picking bits when u arent looking... just eating enough to sustain but not enough to grow

i had a baby 1.5inch san merah in quarantine that i treated for chilodonella for 2 months. i saw him eat a spec of food like 6 times in that entire period... but then one day his appetite returned and he began eating again. he is def stunted, but he is alive and well today. i suspect urs is also grazing on the floor and sides of the tank when u arent looking.

u may not need to treat him at all. and treating when there arent symptoms (like white stringy poop) may not be wise... but if he was my fish i would prob move him to QT, crank the heat to 88F, and dose the tank with metro for a week.

[Solid]

He looks ok to me. If he is pretty new to you snd the only problem is he doesn't eat and hides I would give him 2-3 weeks before I worry about any disease.

[slp]

Well it has been about 4 weeks since this fish stopped eating. Never seemed to be sick but did stop growing.
A couple of days ago I was feeding hans beef flakes and I noticed that he started to eat. It was just a very few small pieces, some so small I couldn't even see them. Each day he seemed to eat a little more. Today I was feeding fdbw and he was eating almost normally. He will always be smaller but I now have hopes for him.

Just a note to anyone who might have the same problem. Continue the daily water changes and as there is no sign of disease, don't give up hope.
thanks to all who offered advise and encouragements.

Steve