sick discus

[TroyL]

Today while I was in the local fish store. A woman came in with 3 discus.. All of which were quite thin.. She just dropped the fish off and left.. I noticed one was a pigeon blood. I was talking to the owner and he said they bring discus in all the time that have parasites and leave them for them to try and treat and then they rebuy them.. He told me the 3 she brought in were pretty far gone and they would not be treating them this time.. He offers them to me knowing I have experience with them. I currently have a 240 gallon discus planted tank.. I brought the fish home.. One is extremely thin.. I got them into a 20 gallon QT tank. Got the temp to them up to 85 degrees F. The guy I usually buy my discus from my local breeder told me to set the temp at 85 and add API aquarium salt to the tank.. He wasn't sure on the amount I should add for what the shop guy thought was parasites.. He says between the salt and the heat it should kill them off. I did loose the thinnest Discus tonight before I went to bed. I wrapped the tank so they can't see out and its dark so they stay hopefully stress free. My question is.. How much salt should I be using per gallon for parasites.. If not something in addition to the salt what? I have not ever felt with illness in my discus.. I have been quite lucky in this. Suggestions would be great.
I also noticed here just a bit ago when I went to check on them that the fins are kind ratty and tattered, not smooth by no means.. Breeder suggested they could have a bacterial infection as well.
Thoughts and suggestions would be great.


Troy

[Akili]

Can you post pictures of them, they may be too far gone to treat them and they might be too far gone to treat them.Salt could help at 1 tablespoon per 10 gals but I suggest you treat them with Furan 2 followed by treatement of Prazi and then Metro and do large daily water changes, that is if want to treat them as a learning experence.

[TroyL]

Im sorry for the quality of the pictures. Its not the camera it is the tank it has a white hue to it as it is an old tank and its just setup for a QT tank..
These two don't look bad other then ratter fins. I do feel they can be saved. I knew the 3rd would probably be a lost cause as it was so wear and dint have much fight in it when they were being acclimated to the QT tank.
9967899679

[Akili]

There two ways to go about it the first one is to cull them as they look stunted to me,Second is to put in a lot of time and resources to revive them as a learning experience. What ever you choose good luck with them if you do decide to do the later I suggest you follow my earlier post or do what is advised by others.

[TroyL]

Thy look stunned as I turned a light on them after being in the dark for the past 20 hours. I didn't want to cause much stress so in the beginning of QT i keep their tanks as dark as possible. I have all 4 sides covers and no lights on the tank. They are kept in a room that window shades are always drawn as well. When they went in yesterday they were swimming all over the tank. Im going to see if I can get them to eat anything today. If they eat its my guess they have a chance since they have been on a hunger strike for some time

[MD.David]

Al did a great presentation a while back about "bleeding heart puppy syndrome", he clearly says "Don't do it!", Now you have endangered your entire healthy stock!!!!!
Take it for what it's worth and don't get me wrong, I have done exactly what you are doing more times then I would like to admit. But not anymore and I haven't done it in a very very long time. Funny part is since I stopped doing stuff like that many of my fish sicky problems seem to vanish. Took me a year of diligent health care and research to bring my stock to ultimum health, I would not risk that for anything.
Now when I see a sick discus I see a potential of making all my other fish sick... (never again!).
I don't mean to be course or rough with anyone, but I see this all the time on the forum, I haven't posted in almost 6 months (but started again recently) but I read a lot and always read the forum almost daily still.
We must understand what we are actually doing with a our discus, and I know the more senior members will read this (not sure if they will hate me or not), but we have to have a higher responsibility to our fish that we keep. Any time and I mean "Any Time", you bring a new fish in your house, you run a very high risk of making your other fish sick. There is no "mine are healthy they are good" or "it won't happen to me", this is unrealistic thinking.
We must have an understanding of the impending risk the fish are subjected to, and most of the time all the quarantining in the world will not stop a spread of a sickness.
You see, we must understand that a fish carries bacteria, and unless the other fish were brought up in the same bacteria they will get sick from it, this is why here on SD and other experienced discus keepers only buy from one source, so this anti-bacteria resistant immune system problems are not such an issue, (this doesn't include the risk of parasites as well or internal worms, etc.).
I hate to harp on people, but this is the 4th or 5th thread in the last month I have read like this...
Ok, I'm done maybe I should stop now... sorry for the rant but I'm sure many have gotten my point.

Best of luck.

[Bc chick]

There two ways to go about it the first one is to cull them as they look stunted to me,Second is to put in a lot of time and resources to revive them as a learning experience. What ever you choose good luck with them if you do decide to do the later I suggest you follow my earlier post or do what is advised by others.

why would you cull due to stunting?

[Larry Bugg]

They don't just look stunted. They are very stunted and look like they have been very poorly cared for. I know it can sound harsh but like David, I would never bring discus like this into my fish room. You are simply taking too big a risk and yes, I have done it myself many years ago. Never again.

[TroyL]

What do you mean stunted?? growth size or do you mean quite thin? After having them in the QT tank they are now eating a little.. they were on a hunger strike all together. Color in fish has improved as well. They are out and moving in the tank. They don't act like they are shy and with drawn. There was also poo in the tank today. I did a 100% water change again today and treated with metro again. We will give it a week and see how they do ..

[John_Nicholson]

Do yourself a favor. Kill them and bleach the tank. The chances of you saving them is almost zero and even if you did save them they would never look good.

-john

[Filip]

Do yourself a favor. Kill them and bleach the tank. The chances of you saving them is almost zero and even if you did save them they would never look good.

-john


Short ,simple and yet couldnt be closer to the thruth .
With todays choice of discus on the market its pointless to waste time with this far gone fish .

[Akili]

why would you cull due to stunting?Not only that they are stunted, they are very sick as well.

[Clawhammer]

Everyone who has advised you to cull the fish are vastly more experienced than me. In fact, I think this attitude may be the reason they are still in the hobby, and those with the more empathetic approach are not. Also, I agree with their diagnosis on the state of the fish, I wouldn't have brought them home, but would have been tempted to.

That being said, a lot of people here are very serious long term keepers who are at this point in their hobby are only interested in spending their time on perfect fish. Some of us are less serious and see these fish as pets, with no ambition to breed or show.

A fish that I bought got very sick, to the point it had fin rot and pinch, but I was able to turn it around. It remains to be seen what he will turn out like ascetically, but I have to say, seeing him swimming around healthy, eating, and growing is pretty damn fulfilling.

If you do decide to keep trying to save these guys, be sure you have equipment completely and solely dedicated to that tank and try to move it away from the other tanks. There is a lot of info on this forum if you use the search tool correctly.

Good luck.

[Altum Nut]

Troy...by all means don't take it personal. Suggestions above are from some of the most experienced Discus hobbyist/breeders who speak the truth.
Salt as suggested by your LFS or local breeder will not kill off parasites and feel your being steered in the wrong direction.
Meds cost money and not worth treating these Discus.
My suggestion is to cull them and enjoy your 240g Discus tank before you infect it.
I'm actually shocked you took them because you said your experienced with Discus?

...Ralph

[Willie]

Of course, it's going to be your decision. One way to look at this is from the point of view of the fish. By that, I mean the fish in your 240. What's the upside of adding a stunted and diseased discus into your collection? The down side is losing all the fish in your big tank.

Willie

[TroyL]

I have been keeping a discus in planted tank for about 3 years now. I realize that its not a long period of time compared to many here. Yeah I not buying $200 discus. I just do the simple Blue diamonds, Cobalts and I have a few hybrids. I buy mine on what appeals to my eye when I am looking for them. Like Will stated I am in it as a hobby as I like viewing the fish.. Not in it to breed or show by any means. Its just a relaxing hobby for me. I have been in the aquarium hobby for 30+ years. I started out like everyone with guppies, platty's, molly and tetras. From there I moved to saltwater for about 10 years. After deciding the cost was just getting to much I sold all my livestock and coral and went back to freshwater. I did research and found a local breeder by me and purchased my first set of discus and set them up in a planted 75 gallon reef ready tank. After they started growing I decided I wanted to go huge on a discus tank and bought the 240. At one time I had 15 subadult discus in it. After thinking I wanted to go to rainbow fish I started selling them off until I got down to the 6 that I had then decided rainbows were not for me.. Since thing I have been looking to regrow my stock again to about 12-15 again.

[TroyL]

On sanitizing the Hospital tank.. for 1 gal of water how much bleach do I use to make sure everything is dead? I have to do the tank, Lid, net and sponge filter and airline.. although its cheap enough to just toss if need be

[Akili]

10-1 water -bleach ratio then rinse thoroughly,But do not bleach the sponge they do not fare well in bleach. Microwave them for 3 minutes or use a new one

[TroyL]

Ok Thank you..
As far as sponge goes do I want to rinse it with tap water to clean out all the gunk then leave it wet and microwave it or would putting it in a pan and boil it be just as effective?

[Akili]

Ok Thank you..
As far as sponge goes do I want to rinse it with tap water to clean out all the gunk then leave it wet and microwave it or would putting it in a pan and boil it be just as effective?Never tried boiling let us know if you you use the boiling method.

[William1]

Oh gosh. Lesson learned for all I hope. Now you have to stress out about that you may have infected your big tank from cross contamination. Best of luck. Just get a new sponge filter. It's not worth the fifteen bucks or so to fool with is it?