dancesprite
06-01-2017, 02:04 AM
Default Disease Questionnaire - please complete
Please complete this 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
rapid breathing started about 7 weeks ago, a week after we moved the tank, changed from 3" gravel to 2" sand, and added one leopard discus. Got better after 2 days of CLOUT medication. Heavy breathing returned in pigeon blood and maybe in others so treated again with CLOUT for 5 days. A week after treatment stopped, pigeonblood began breathing heavily again.
Everyone had a poor appetite after medication. Smallest (blue diamond and yellow stripe) got appetite back, but larger discus still don't seem as interested in food as they were before treatment.
Yellow stripe has a thin white filament coming out of its mouth, but is eating well.
Pigeon blood is breathing very heavily with gills flared, is no longer dominant, doesn't eat.
The leopard discus that started the mess is just starting to be less shy, and it is very skinny, but appears to be eating some now and healthy otherwise with normal breathing and color.
Turquoise and stardust don't seem to be very interested in food, but they look great, so I assume they are eating. I have an 11month old daughter, am repairing an older home, and just started graduate school. Trying to research possible discus treatments has taken away my pleasure time to watch them.
2. Symptoms
Previous:
rapid breathing by half of the discus
leopard(3.5") - (since arrival) not eating, hiding.
Current:
leopard(3.5") - Now very skinny but comes out to eat some
pigeon blood(4") - personality change from dominant to more isolated and scares easily now; breathing rapidly with gills flaring; bloated; skinny behind bloat; not eating
yellow stripe(2.5") - good appetite; very active/dominant; small thin thread coming out of mouth (too fine to photograph); breathing quickly (maybe because he/she is younger and eats a lot and has a belly???)
turquoise and stardust (4") look great, but don't eat much
blue diamond (2.5") is a happy pig
All discus continue to grow in size except the leopard (I'm hoping it is just an extremely shy fish, and getting over that soon)
everyone's color is great
3. What medications/ treatments have you already tried and what were the results. Include dosage and duration of treatment.
Clout - two days per directions followed by 50% water change, return of carbon and purigen = rapid breathing went away
one week later some were breathing fast again
Clout - 5 days (snails, and loach removed) per directions 25% water change with dosing daily, finished with 50% water change and added back carbon and purigen= discus again seemed fine, but krebensis died (possibly due to age) Snails and loach added a week after treatment finished. (I use purigen because my drift wood is still barely leaching tannins)
Tank/Water
4. Tank size and ages, numbers and sizes of fish.
55gal bow front currently running for one year (gravel swapped out for sand 7 weeks ago, but water, filter, plants etc same)
3x 4" discus (turquoise 9 months, stardust and pigeon blood 4 months)
1x 3.5" discus (leopard 2 months)
2x 2.5" discus (blue diamond 3 months, yellow stripe 1 month)
1 pleco, 1 loach, 1 blue acara, 2 mystery snails (laid eggs this week- yay!) all about 1 year
1 siamese algae eater, 1 diamond tetra, (1 krebensis died a few weeks ago) about 4 months
5. Water change regime (What percentage and how often).
30% weekly when no problems
lately 25% mid week, 40% weekend
6. How long has tank been running? Is it bare bottom? If you have substrate, what type and how deep is it?
tank running for one year
moved 7 weeks ago and switched from gravel to sand when moving. Kept 100% of the water, plants, wood, stone - rearranged, only substrate changed from 3" black gravel to 2" white sand (pool filter/pure silica).
7. Do you age your water? If you do for how long and what is the ph swing.
no, use seachem neutralizer and discus buffer to adjust to 6.4 and let it sit a few hours with heater to bring up to temp.
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 ____83 - 84F
- ph ____6.4
- ammonia reading ___0_
- nitrite reading ___0
- nitrate reading ____40
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.
100% well RO water
I add "discus trace elements" by seachem
Once a week I use excel liquid carbon for the plants and sometimes use iron or flourish, but maybe once every other week.
9. Any new fish, plants or inverts added recently.
3.5" leopard discus 7 weeks ago
2" yellow stripe discus 4 weeks ago
temple plant 4 weeks ago
10. Please tell us what you feed your fish and how often. This can be critical information for solving the problem so be as specific as you can.
Thera+A and blood worms twice a day
algae wafer once a day
11. 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.
Last edited by brewmaster15; 01-28-2017 at 12:43 AM. Reason: Added food question
As a bonus side note:
When I had discus a few years ago I aged water with drift wood, but I don't have the time these days to age enough for this large of a tank. Does anyone else use the chemicals to adjust Ph? How do you like to make the perfect discus water???
Please complete this 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
rapid breathing started about 7 weeks ago, a week after we moved the tank, changed from 3" gravel to 2" sand, and added one leopard discus. Got better after 2 days of CLOUT medication. Heavy breathing returned in pigeon blood and maybe in others so treated again with CLOUT for 5 days. A week after treatment stopped, pigeonblood began breathing heavily again.
Everyone had a poor appetite after medication. Smallest (blue diamond and yellow stripe) got appetite back, but larger discus still don't seem as interested in food as they were before treatment.
Yellow stripe has a thin white filament coming out of its mouth, but is eating well.
Pigeon blood is breathing very heavily with gills flared, is no longer dominant, doesn't eat.
The leopard discus that started the mess is just starting to be less shy, and it is very skinny, but appears to be eating some now and healthy otherwise with normal breathing and color.
Turquoise and stardust don't seem to be very interested in food, but they look great, so I assume they are eating. I have an 11month old daughter, am repairing an older home, and just started graduate school. Trying to research possible discus treatments has taken away my pleasure time to watch them.
2. Symptoms
Previous:
rapid breathing by half of the discus
leopard(3.5") - (since arrival) not eating, hiding.
Current:
leopard(3.5") - Now very skinny but comes out to eat some
pigeon blood(4") - personality change from dominant to more isolated and scares easily now; breathing rapidly with gills flaring; bloated; skinny behind bloat; not eating
yellow stripe(2.5") - good appetite; very active/dominant; small thin thread coming out of mouth (too fine to photograph); breathing quickly (maybe because he/she is younger and eats a lot and has a belly???)
turquoise and stardust (4") look great, but don't eat much
blue diamond (2.5") is a happy pig
All discus continue to grow in size except the leopard (I'm hoping it is just an extremely shy fish, and getting over that soon)
everyone's color is great
3. What medications/ treatments have you already tried and what were the results. Include dosage and duration of treatment.
Clout - two days per directions followed by 50% water change, return of carbon and purigen = rapid breathing went away
one week later some were breathing fast again
Clout - 5 days (snails, and loach removed) per directions 25% water change with dosing daily, finished with 50% water change and added back carbon and purigen= discus again seemed fine, but krebensis died (possibly due to age) Snails and loach added a week after treatment finished. (I use purigen because my drift wood is still barely leaching tannins)
Tank/Water
4. Tank size and ages, numbers and sizes of fish.
55gal bow front currently running for one year (gravel swapped out for sand 7 weeks ago, but water, filter, plants etc same)
3x 4" discus (turquoise 9 months, stardust and pigeon blood 4 months)
1x 3.5" discus (leopard 2 months)
2x 2.5" discus (blue diamond 3 months, yellow stripe 1 month)
1 pleco, 1 loach, 1 blue acara, 2 mystery snails (laid eggs this week- yay!) all about 1 year
1 siamese algae eater, 1 diamond tetra, (1 krebensis died a few weeks ago) about 4 months
5. Water change regime (What percentage and how often).
30% weekly when no problems
lately 25% mid week, 40% weekend
6. How long has tank been running? Is it bare bottom? If you have substrate, what type and how deep is it?
tank running for one year
moved 7 weeks ago and switched from gravel to sand when moving. Kept 100% of the water, plants, wood, stone - rearranged, only substrate changed from 3" black gravel to 2" white sand (pool filter/pure silica).
7. Do you age your water? If you do for how long and what is the ph swing.
no, use seachem neutralizer and discus buffer to adjust to 6.4 and let it sit a few hours with heater to bring up to temp.
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 ____83 - 84F
- ph ____6.4
- ammonia reading ___0_
- nitrite reading ___0
- nitrate reading ____40
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.
100% well RO water
I add "discus trace elements" by seachem
Once a week I use excel liquid carbon for the plants and sometimes use iron or flourish, but maybe once every other week.
9. Any new fish, plants or inverts added recently.
3.5" leopard discus 7 weeks ago
2" yellow stripe discus 4 weeks ago
temple plant 4 weeks ago
10. Please tell us what you feed your fish and how often. This can be critical information for solving the problem so be as specific as you can.
Thera+A and blood worms twice a day
algae wafer once a day
11. 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.
Last edited by brewmaster15; 01-28-2017 at 12:43 AM. Reason: Added food question
As a bonus side note:
When I had discus a few years ago I aged water with drift wood, but I don't have the time these days to age enough for this large of a tank. Does anyone else use the chemicals to adjust Ph? How do you like to make the perfect discus water???