New Discus not eating and swimming

[mysteriousscarz]

Hi everyone! I am new to keeping discus but I have had all sorts of freshwater tanks in the past. I have a 75-gallon aquarium and bought two disucs about 3 inches. I have had them for the past month and I never really had a problem. I fed them a mix of brine shrimp, blood worms, and black worms. They never ate Mysis shrimp though.

Couple of days back, I bougt 4 discus, ranging in size from 2'' to 5''. They are hiding and do not eat. To add to my plight, the older discus which I already had are now hiding and not eating as well. Is this normal.

I have a bare bottom tank and zero decorations. Temperature set at 85F and all other parameters in check.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreaciated.

Thanks,
Meshach

[Filip]

Hi Meshach and welcome to the forum .
I'm sorry to tell you this , but this is completely normal when you mix 2 different groups of discus especialy without any quarantine procedure beforehand .
It is called cross - contamination meaning different discus groups infect each other with different types of pathogens .

Do big daily water changes with aged water to strip as much pathogens from the water as you can for now and just observe them closely . They might get better on them selfs in a couple of days or you might need to medicate and help them overcome this .It all depends of how the things will progress. Watch for symptoms on their skin and their feces for now .

Good luck Mescach .

[mysteriousscarz]

Hi Meshach and welcome to the forum .
I'm sorry to tell you this , but this is completely normal when you mix 2 different groups of discus especialy without any quarantine procedure beforehand .
It is called cross - contamination meaning different discus groups infect each other with different types of pathogens .

Do big daily water changes with aged water to strip as much pathogens from the water as you can for now and just observe them closely . They might get better on them selfs in a couple of days or you might need to medicate and help them overcome this .It all depends of how the things will progress. Watch for symptoms on their skin and their feces for now .

Good luck Mescach .

Thank you for your response Filip. I have noticed that they all hang together and started to show signs of illness i.e. clamped fins, head stand and imbalance. I immediately treated the tank with RId-Ich followed by Furan 2 as suggested on the forum.Would these medications work?

[ssevasta]

In my experience the best thing to do in this situation is to add salt at 2 tablespoons per 10 gallons and do 90% daily water changes for two weeks, you should position your heater horizontally near the bottom of the back wall so you can drain as much water as possible without exposing it to air. If they start to huddle at the surface and turn black with slime peeling off their sides you should order Nitrofurazone from jehmco and do a 10 Day treatment. If they don’t start eating a week after regaining their normal colors then they probably have hex as well and your going to need to order metro from jehmco as well. Make sure that your heater is able to reach 94F because metro works best at this temp, you’re going to need to bring the temperature down to 82F while treating with the Nitrofurazone. Using salt during the metro treatment isn’t a bad idea either. Also while you’re doing any treatment it’s important that you feed them lightly and vacuum out any uneaten foods after 15 minutes because a lot of these medications are sugar based which can compromise water quality and antibiotics like Nitrofurazone may also negatively affect your biological filter. Make sure that you buy yourself a decent gram scale on amazon or eBay that goes to .00 for measuring your medications, they’re under $30. Good luck

[mysteriousscarz]

Thank you Ssevasta. Will go ahead and follow your instructions, I hope me and the fish get through this.

[ssevasta]

I’ve been in your shoes. The past two months were an absolute hell due to a cross contamination. That last post is based off of what I’ve learned in the process of saving my fish. At least this way you don’t have to make the same mistakes I did and you should be able to get a handle on the situation much quicker. If I only knew then what I know now. Furan 2 and Nitrofurazone is the same thing but it’s much cheaper and allows you to control the strength of the dosage by ordering it from jehmco. I’m not sure what kind of heater you have but I bought the finnex titanium 500 watt and finnex external temperature controller combo on amazon and it kept my 75 gallon tank at 94F rock steady during the metro treatment. I recommend that heater and controller more than any other piece of equipment for a Discus tank.

[mysteriousscarz]

I have two Eheim Jager 250 watt heaters on my tank. They do a pretty neat job in mainating the set temperature. I have another question for you. I wanted to give my fish a salt dip. Would you recommended going ahead with API Aquarium salt?

[ssevasta]

I just use the diamond crystal kosher salt from Walmart, it’s $3 for 3 pounds and comes in a red box. If you already have the api salt you can use it but the stuff I use is cheaper. Some other forum members buy 50 pound bags of solar salt from Home Depot but it would take me years to use that much salt and I put a higher value on the space that a 50 pound bag of salt would take up. I never did any salt dips when I was battling the cross contamination but there’s threads about it on the forum.

[mysteriousscarz]

Thank you for your valuable suggestions. Much appreciated. I will buy the diamond crystal kosher salt from Walmart. I hope me and my fish get through this rough period.

[adrian31@outlook.com]

You might also want to fill out the questionaire in the Emergency Room section. Include pics if you can. This will provide more of the information necessary for other forum members to help you.

http://forum.simplydiscus.com/forumdisplay.php?34-Emergency-Room

[mysteriousscarz]

I will do that Adrian. Thanks.

[ssevasta]

I also agree with Adrian about filling out the questionnaire and including pictures but you’re going to have to develop a plan and then stick to it in order to give it a chance to work. Generally it takes about five days before you see signs of improvement when using an antibiotic and if you interrupt or discontinue treatment early then the bacteria can develop a resistance to the medication. A fish’s liver can only take so much and the use of the wrong med or too many medications can kill a fish faster than illness.

[adrian31@outlook.com]

In my limited experience, once Discus get sick things can spiral quickly and become a nightmare. Good advice offered by Sean.