Too Late for Rose...

[mskraft]

Hello all,

As suggested by the title, I lost a very lovely Red Rose this morning due to something that appears to be bacterial in my tank. She developed some rather angry looking ulcers on her sides earlier this week and was very dark so I did a large water change. When the ulcers began to look worse and fin rot set in, I began to treat the tank with antibiotics. Unfortunately the treatment didn't work in time to save her. When I found her this morning, she was deep in the plants and looked like all of her scales were gone. Ironically, the ulcers looked like they were trying to heal. I'm asking if there is anything else I could have or should have done so I could prevent something like this from happening again. Thanks in advance for the help.

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?

Large Ulcers with red ring around them on both sides of fish and fin rot

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).

Dark, open wounds, fin rot - swimming and eating well

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

API T.C. and E.M. to entire tank for two days before fish died.

Tank/Water

4. Tank size and ages, numbers and sizes of fish.

210 gallon, 20 discus, smallest is 2.5" - Largest it 5"

5. Water change regime (What percentage and how often).

50-75% twice weekly

6. How long has tank been running? Is it bare bottom? If you have substrate, what type and how deep is it?

1 year with 3" substrate and a boatload of plants

7. Do you age your water? If you do for how long and what is the ph swing.

no

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 __86___

- ph __6___

- ammonia reading __0__

- nitrite reading __0__

- nitrate reading __<5__ (readings prior to water change)

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%_ (w/ added Prime, Stress Guard and Discus Buffer)

- RO water ____


9. Any new fish, plants or inverts added recently.

added two larger Discus - including the ulcerated one about a month ago.

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.

No photos

[pitdogg2]

only thing I can add, Is most of us avoid Discus Buffer due to phosphates . Here is a search that you may mull over and decide for yourself.

https://www.google.com/search?q=discus+buffer&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8

look for the simply discus links.

[mskraft]

only thing I can add, Is most of us avoid Discus Buffer due to phosphates . Here is a search that you may mull over and decide for yourself.

https://www.google.com/search?q=discus+buffer&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8

look for the simply discus links.

Thanks for the response. The buffer was suggested when I mentioned to a LFS owner who I've always received beautiful stock from that my fish would turn dark shortly after a water change. My PH out of the tap was high 7's. It would eventually come down to lower 7's I'm guessing because of the driftwood and peat moss I have in the tank and filter, but never to the 5-6 range he suggested the water to be in.

[pitdogg2]

I keep mine in a stable pH of tap water that is 7.4-8.0 depending on time of the year. Stability is key here my water comes out of the tap at 8.5 and after 24hrs of percolating in my water tank it settles down to 7.4-8.0 for the most part mine is 7.6 95% of the time. If you are not aging your water before the change it my be that you need to to gas off CO2 or other nastiness that comes from tap water pH bounce or drop.

With the amount of gravel you have in your tank you may need to step up your regime of water changes to daily. I keep plants in pots and have a bare bottom so there is no accumulation of debris.
I'd also suggest to run tap water into a small tank and aerate it to see just what it does 24hrs later you may be very surprised to see such a difference in your pH.

I'll sure other more experience folks here could be more helpful in the other problems you are having.

[mskraft]

I keep mine in a stable pH of tap water that is 7.4-8.0 depending on time of the year. Stability is key here my water comes out of the tap at 8.5 and after 24hrs of percolating in my water tank it settles down to 7.4-8.0 for the most part mine is 7.6 95% of the time. If you are not aging your water before the change it my be that you need to to gas off CO2 or other nastiness that comes from tap water pH bounce or drop.

With the amount of gravel you have in your tank you may need to step up your regime of water changes to daily. I keep plants in pots and have a bare bottom so there is no accumulation of debris.
I'd also suggest to run tap water into a small tank and aerate it to see just what it does 24hrs later you may be very surprised to see such a difference in your pH.

I'll sure other more experience folks here could be more helpful in the other problems you are having.

I hand feed my discus to help keep the debris low and check my water parameters often during the week just to make sure there are no spikes or weirdness with the water. Good idea to time the PH drop in a small tank. I'll give that a try. Any idea why the buggers only attacked one of my discus? I'm just trying to understand the cause of it in the first place because all of the others seem fine, growing and doing well. Anything else I should do to keep it from spreading?

[Rudustin]

The only comment I have is that your water seems a bit too hot. I keep my discus at eighty two degrees in all my tanks. I can't comment on a planted tank with substrate nor the illness that your RR may have had because I have eight bare bottom tanks with no plants of any kind. I assume when you added the discus a month ago you followed quarantine procedures. If you did then it is still a mystery. I also would stay away from discus buffer simply because discus are not that sensitive to Ph only unstable Ph. A higher PH would not hurt your discus as long as the PH was stable. In the future it would be best if you isolated a fish that you suspect or know is not well into a hospital tank and then treat that fish and then stay vigilant as to the health of your other fish. I don't know if it was such a good idea to use the medications on such a large tank and I believe that antibiotics can affect the filtering system considerably. Such medications can kill the good bacteria in the filtering system. I also agree that I think you might need to step up the water changes. That is a large bio load with 20 discus even in a 210gallon tank. Sorry for you loss and good luck and hope your other discus are not affected. Rufus

[mskraft]

Thanks for the advice. It is appreciated. :)