Please help I’m at a loss!

[Chimama]

Before I go into details I will give you a bit of info on my tank.
60 gallon tank
Parameters are
Ammonia- 0
Nitrite- 0
Nitrate- 10
Ph is a bit low but steady and consistent at 6.5..... stays at that even after a water change as I’ve tested before and after a water change.
Water changes I do 25-50% daily or every other day.
Feeding 3x a day and are fed pellets, flakes and beef heart.
I have well water and do not age my water.

Now I had 6 discus in the tank which I’ve had for almost 6 months now....... All were doing great.......eating good and very active. Well suddenly one fish started flipping out all over the tank hitting the top and sides. After the episode the fish would look as if it knocked itself out, the it would sit at a top corner breathing a bit heavy. But in a few hours would be swimming around normally. So I upped my water changes and tested the water to make sure parameters were still good. Two days later again the fish did the same thing...... this time more frequently. Upped my water change to 60% and added salt. Fish continued and the next day seemed to be having these episodes so often I knew he wouldn’t make. That same day another fish had the same type of episode in the middle of eating. Both died the next day. 4 days later a third fish did the same thing...... one day of episodes for the 3rd fish and that one died.

I read on Macs discus page that heat treatment can sometimes fix erratic swimming. So 4 days ago I turned up the heat and my remaining 3 have been doing great and eating good....... but I haven’t seen anything with these 3.

Well tonight after I fed them I was watching them and another one suddenly flipped out all over the tank and now is at the top of the tank dazed and breathing heavy.

I do not know what is going on and I’m hoping someone out there can help me. These fish don’t have any visual signs of being sick before the erratic swimming. They are eating good and active so whatever this is seems to just come out of the blue and progress so quickly I don’t know what to do from here!

Medications I have on hand are but have not used yet as I have no clue what would be used for this if anything.
Metroplex
Erythromycin
PraziPro
General Cure

So I’m hoping someone can help me figure out what’s going on. I’m so sad that this is happening. :(

[Sturiosoma]

You say you notice this while feeding, is there any one thing your feeding specifically when you notice this behavior

Jeanne

[fljones3]

What type of substrate do you have? How old is the aquarium setup? Also, check your heater. Could be going bad although I would doubt that since it only happens at feeding.

[Chimama]

I had switched them to cobalt flakes and pellets but then read that people were having issues with that brand. So they are on beef heart soft pellets from Cascadia and Seachem discus flack with garlic......they were eating the Seachem flakes before the switch and I just added the soft beef heart pellets before the cobalt. I’ve stopped feeding the cobalt brand.

They also eat frozen beef heart which they have been eating since I’ve had them.

[Chimama]

I have checked both heaters........ all is fine with them. Substrate I have a little white gravel, about an inch not a lot. I also clean the gravel every water change. I use a python.

Aquarium has been running for years. I had angels, a geophagus and some tetras for years before switching to discus.

[Filip]

Try not to feed for one week and leave the lights off , let them rest . Proceed with your regullar maintenance (siphoning + WCs) . Up the WCs if you can age the water , and if you do straight tap stay at your 30% routine .
Starving discus and aging water prior WCs helped me resolve the whirlling symptoms in the past .
No harm in trying that too.

[Chimama]

Try not to feed for one week and leave the lights off , let them rest . Proceed with your regullar maintenance (siphoning + WCs) . Up the WCs if you can age the water , and if you do straight tap stay at your 30% routine .
Starving discus and aging water prior WCs helped me resolve the whirlling symptoms in the past .
No harm in trying that too.

I will try that. Right now the temp is at 90 as I was trying a heat treatment. Should I lower the temp now or wait? I’ve had it at 90 for 5 days.

[bluelagoon]

This has happened a few times with discus on this forum. Won't hurt to try what has been mentioned. Seems like all that had this with their discus in the past were mostly fatal outcomes. It is devastaing to watch all come by this one by one. This has been describied on here to be whirlling disease. Looks like seizures to me. No one seems to know for sure what is going on with these discus.

[Sturiosoma]

I had switched them to cobalt flakes and pellets but then read that people were having issues with that brand. So they are on beef heart soft pellets from Cascadia and Seachem discus flack with garlic......they were eating the Seachem flakes before the switch and I just added the soft beef heart pellets before the cobalt. I’ve stopped feeding the cobalt brand.

They also eat frozen beef heart which they have been eating since I’ve had them.


I checked out the ingredients in the soft beef heart pellets and I'm not liking them, and also you say that this is a new food and you have been experiencing problems since feeding, I would stop using this food and stick with the Seachem flakes

Jeanne

[jeep]

This has happened a few times with discus on this forum. Won't hurt to try what has been mentioned. Seems like all that had this with their discus in the past were mostly fatal outcomes. It is devastaing to watch all come by this one by one. This has been describied on here to be whirlling disease. Looks like seizures to me. No one seems to know for sure what is going on with these discus.

Yes, I've other people report this as well and I haven't seen a conclusive cause. I've seen isolated cases that affect a single fish which would be more easily explained, but when it moves through and affects them all there has to be a common factor... disease, parasite, water, food or an outside influence...

Things I would try... Filip's suggestion, change heaters, change up foods and feed only one or two types like FDBW's from Al. If you're on a well, maybe run your water through a carbon block...

[Second Hand Pat]

Hi Chimama, I have had plenty of whirling incidents in the past many times with fatal outcomes. It is heart wrenching. For me the trigger was generally which lowing the water in the tank for a water change. The fish would dash around the tank as fast as it could bumping into the sides of the tank and then would either go to the bottom of the tank and do small circles or to the top of the tank breathing hard. The bars of the fish would be super dark.

In the past I have found adding large qualities of regular salt (one tablespoon per gallon) to help prevent the whirling but you can not keep the fish in salt for long periods of time without harming them over time. Brian and I run the SimplyDiscus discus group of Facebook and one of the member's there tryed heat and it seemed to be working but I do not recall them reporting back on the final result.

So you may consider adding salt to the mix and continuing with the heat. Please consider this experimental.
Pat

[Chimama]

Hi Chimama, I have had plenty of whirling incidents in the past many times with fatal outcomes. It is heart wrenching. For me the trigger was generally which lowing the water in the tank for a water change. The fish would dash around the tank as fast as it could bumping into the sides of the tank and then would either go to the bottom of the tank and do small circles or to the top of the tank breathing hard. The bars of the fish would be super dark.

In the past I have found adding large qualities of regular salt (one tablespoon per gallon) to help prevent the whirling but you can not keep the fish in salt for long periods of time without harming them over time. Brian and I run the SimplyDiscus discus group of Facebook and one of the member's there tryed heat and it seemed to be working but I do not recall them reporting back on the final result.

So you may consider adding salt to the mix and continuing with the heat. Please consider this experimental.
Pat

Thank so much Pat! I have API aquarium salt so I will add some of that and continue with the heat treatment. How long should I do this treatment? I’ve been at 90 degrees for 5 days.

[Second Hand Pat]

Thank so much Pat! I have API aquarium salt so I will add some of that and continue with the heat treatment. How long should I do this treatment? I’ve been at 90 degrees for 5 days.

That is a really good question Chimama, lets try for 14 days with both the heat and salt. Remember to replace the salt for the volume of water removed. I think some of the food suggestions are worth trying especially if a food is questionable.
Pat

[LizStreithorst]

I've heard of this several times but only experienced it once. John Nicholson swears that he has cured it with nothing but good clean water. When it happened to me, it was my least favorite fish it happened to. I couldn't deal with seeing the fish dash around the tank, crashing into the tank walls until it was exhausted. Once I saw the fish do it a second time, I euthanized it.

[Chimama]

Thank you all so very much! I’m going to take all this advice and hope for the best! I’m going to stick with the Seachem flakes, frozen beef heart and I was also feeding Tetra color granules before I switched them to the other stuff! I will keep the heat up and continue with my daily water changes.

Also one more thing I forgot to ask....... I use activated carbon in my filter. I read somewhere it not needed unless removing meds. So I would love to hear opinions on this.

And thank you all so very much!

[danotaylor]

That's is true, but if your source water is well water (ground water) and you live in an agricultural district I would run carbon on the water aging system.

[Chimama]

This has happened a few times with discus on this forum. Won't hurt to try what has been mentioned. Seems like all that had this with their discus in the past were mostly fatal outcomes. It is devastaing to watch all come by this one by one. This has been describied on here to be whirlling disease. Looks like seizures to me. No one seems to know for sure what is going on with these discus.

I totally agree that it does in fact look exactly like a seizure to me! And it’s horrible and devastating to watch.

[Chimama]

That's is true, but if your source water is well water (ground water) and you live in an agricultural district I would run carbon on the water aging system.

Unfortunately I don’t have the means to age my water at the moment. I’ve also had these fish for about 6 months with no issues. And I had angels for years with this water and never had issues. So until now I have never even thought about needing to age the water.

[LizStreithorst]

I totally agree that it does in fact look exactly like a seizure to me! And it’s horrible and devastating to watch.

I suffered petit mal seizures until I was in my mid 20's. They felt terrible both before and after. They were also exhausting. Once I saw my fish go through that I simply could not handle having to see it again. I'm generally not so weak.

I wish I could tell you how to fix it, but I can't. I did a search here. It's called Whirling disease. There's some stuff in the archives about it but I didn't see anyone come up with a for sure cure. You may want to search further. It's a very sad condition. I hope you have good luck.

[Chimama]

I suffered petit mal seizures until I was in my mid 20's. They felt terrible both before and after. They were also exhausting. Once I saw my fish go through that I simply could not handle having to see it again. I'm generally not so weak.

I wish I could tell you how to fix it, but I can't. I did a search here. It's called Whirling disease. There's some stuff in the archives about it but I didn't see anyone come up with a for sure cure. You may want to search further. It's a very sad condition. I hope you have good luck.

Thank you so much. I’ve also done quite a bit of looking into this issue and I’ve had zero luck finding much. It’s being talked about all over but it seems like no one can find a solution or even a reason for it. It just makes me feel so discouraged as I love these fish and have always wanted to have them. I’ve also been trying to do everything correctly with water changes and testing making sure their water is clean with good parameters.

[LizStreithorst]

Are these fish related at all or did they all come from the same source? I wonder if there is a genetic component?

[Chimama]

Are these fish related at all or did they all come from the same source? I wonder if there is a genetic component?

We got them from two different local places. I did not quarantine as I was unaware I needed too when I bought them. Luckily all has been good for the last 6 months. I do now have a qt tank set up that’s been running for a few months in case I needed it. Before I purchased them I did a basic read on maintenance that they needed. After I got them is when I started reading others stories. That’s when I set up the qt tank just in case.

[bluelagoon]

Are these fish related at all or did they all come from the same source? I wonder if there is a genetic component?

I'm wondering if they are all coming from a Vietnam breeder. It seems to happen at about 4-4.5" healthy looking discus. Usually during or after a WC. Very Strange.

[Sturiosoma]

Now that sounds like a whole new issue, is your well water treated in any way and are you sure your not having a ph swing

Jeanne

[dspeers]

Not sure if you found this but a very good discussion of what you are going through with additional links, not all of which have I had a chance to review: http://forum.simplydiscus.com/showthread.php?130336-Whirling-Disease Ultimately somewhat frustrating as treatments that work for some do not seem to be consistently repeatable which argues for coincidence over causality.

From a medical perspective, the sequential evolution of victims which happens frequently (although not universally) argues for some sort of infectious cause with a several day incubation period. The sequence of being passed on to only one or a few victims, then repeating argues for a relatively low pathogenicity (ability to pass on clinical infection) vs high virulence (harm, in this case usually death). Unfortunately the pattern is not all that helpful and in addition such deductive speculation in medicine absent concrete evidence is often nothing more than a method to screw up with confidence.

Al makes a fairly compelling argument (page 2 from above thread) that the cause or at least contributing factor may be due to gas supersaturation (AKA microbubbles) which argues for an absolute requirement (independent of ph stabilization) for aging your water source to dissipate supersaturated gasses. Both agitation and bringing up temperature during aging facilitates this process (FYI, aeration of relatively cold water increases saturation or in Texan: circulation pump good, airstone bad). Also lowering the flow rate of replacement water into the main tank reduces the effects of any residual supersaturation. Alternately the dissipation time can be calculated:
126235

That's supposed to be funny........hopefully worked, my first picture

I have already decided to go with a low flow Apex pump system for each of my tanks (disabled, don't move buckets of water around anymore....and frankly lazy) for auto water changes 3 hours outflow then 3 hours in from a 90 gal storage tank (with heat and circulation pump). I would also immediately isolate in a hospital tank, if not the first affected fish certainly the second and would also, given the usual outcome, probably try one or more of the treatments mentioned in the linked thread that have been intermittently effective. In a perfect world something would actually work and I would then use in the display if I had additional cases. I wish you luck.

[dspeers]

Oh yea, TDG is total dissolved gasses and DO dissolved Oxygen. What did surprise me was the persistence of supersaturation downstream, this was in rivers downstream from dams after spill events, well beyond 24 hours. How applicable to aquarium settings, who knows. If interested https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Michael_Mcarthur2/publication/303362854_Field_Study_on_the_Dissipation_of_Supers aturated_Total_Dissolved_Gases_in_a_Cascade_Reserv oir_System/links/5ce44723299bf14d95af4116/Field-Study-on-the-Dissipation-of-Supersaturated-Total-Dissolved-Gases-in-a-Cascade-Reservoir-System.pdf

[Chimama]

Oh yea, TDG is total dissolved gasses and DO dissolved Oxygen. What did surprise me was the persistence of supersaturation downstream, this was in rivers downstream from dams after spill events, well beyond 24 hours. How applicable to aquarium settings, who knows. If interested https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Michael_Mcarthur2/publication/303362854_Field_Study_on_the_Dissipation_of_Supers aturated_Total_Dissolved_Gases_in_a_Cascade_Reserv oir_System/links/5ce44723299bf14d95af4116/Field-Study-on-the-Dissipation-of-Supersaturated-Total-Dissolved-Gases-in-a-Cascade-Reservoir-System.pdf


Not sure if you found this but a very good discussion of what you are going through with additional links, not all of which have I had a chance to review: http://forum.simplydiscus.com/showthread.php?130336-Whirling-Disease Ultimately somewhat frustrating as treatments that work for some do not seem to be consistently repeatable which argues for coincidence over causality.

From a medical perspective, the sequential evolution of victims which happens frequently (although not universally) argues for some sort of infectious cause with a several day incubation period. The sequence of being passed on to only one or a few victims, then repeating argues for a relatively low pathogenicity (ability to pass on clinical infection) vs high virulence (harm, in this case usually death). Unfortunately the pattern is not all that helpful and in addition such deductive speculation in medicine absent concrete evidence is often nothing more than a method to screw up with confidence.

Al makes a fairly compelling argument (page 2 from above thread) that the cause or at least contributing factor may be due to gas supersaturation (AKA microbubbles) which argues for an absolute requirement (independent of ph stabilization) for aging your water source to dissipate supersaturated gasses. Both agitation and bringing up temperature during aging facilitates this process (FYI, aeration of relatively cold water increases saturation or in Texan: circulation pump good, airstone bad). Also lowering the flow rate of replacement water into the main tank reduces the effects of any residual supersaturation. Alternately the dissipation time can be calculated:
126235

That's supposed to be funny........hopefully worked, my first picture

I have already decided to go with a low flow Apex pump system for each of my tanks (disabled, don't move buckets of water around anymore....and frankly lazy) for auto water changes 3 hours outflow then 3 hours in from a 90 gal storage tank (with heat and circulation pump). I would also immediately isolate in a hospital tank, if not the first affected fish certainly the second and would also, given the usual outcome, probably try one or more of the treatments mentioned in the linked thread that have been intermittently effective. In a perfect world something would actually work and I would then use in the display if I had additional cases. I wish you luck.

I had not seen that post! Thank you for the link! From what I’ve read there seems to be so many different possibilities! Things from possible water issues, parasites, neurological issues....... all the info is quite helpful yet can leave one wondering what really is the cause! I saw many who use aged water and still had the issue. I will say it certainly looks like seizure activity........ which is exactly what I thought of when I saw how it clustered. Starts off with a couple and then ends with episodes happening more frequent and closer together........ just like clusters of grand mal seizures!

As of right now I’m on day 6 of heat treatment and added salt last night. So far since starting the heat treatment I’ve seen only one episode. Seeing how my others progressed to having back to back episodes with 48 hours of the first episode, it’s better. Will the heat and salt work? I don’t know but I’m hoping it does. Now could it be a parasite? Possibly but determining what it is and what to treat with would be needed would not be easy. It’s so hard to treat something when you have no idea what it is.

Our well water is filtered and I do use prime when doing a water change. Right now I have nothing to age water in, I’m hoping it’s not the water. I’ve had these guys for about 6 months so wouldn’t the water have affected them before this? And what about all the angels I used to have? I would assume if the water was the issue I would have had issues with them too? Sorry if those questions about the water sound silly. And I do have activated carbon in my filter on the tank. And I will be looking into something to age my water. And with the link to the other thread, I also read where some did age their water and still had issues. It’s so baffling as to what whirling disease could actually be caused from.

So hopefully the heat treatment works for me. It’s so sad to see a healthy happy discus progressing so nicely and end up like this. Makes me fell so helpless when I’m doing everything I can to get things back to normal.

And again I can’t thank you all enough with all of your helpful advice!