Beginner list of all meds

[Gator24]

Hello everyone
I have been cycling my 75 G for Discus Planted tank all is well.
Yesterday I purchased 20G quarantine tank with all items needed.
My question is what are the best/ go to meds to have on hand while Qt the fish or what should I treat for while in QT tank before they go into the main tank?
Not new to the hobby just new to Discus.
Thanks all for the guidance

[pablos]

I personally not a big fan of medications. Time and patience are better than treating the whole tank.

[bluelagoon]

I can't buy most meds over the counter anymore where I live, but when I was able to; metronidazole is good. It can treat many flagellate parasites. A few are hexamita, head and lateral line erosion, ich and velvet. A good wide spectrum antibiotic would be Furan 2. As far as a wormer, I'd go with levamisole; it kills all types of worms. Fish can live a long time with worms so you won't need that on hand. Just buy it when you need it. Best medicine is lots of clean fresh water.

[Shan_Evolved]

I can't buy most meds over the counter anymore where I live, but when I was able to; metronidazole is good. It can treat many flagellate parasites. A few are hexamita, head and lateral line erosion, ich and velvet. A good wide spectrum antibiotic would be Furan 2. As far as a wormer, I'd go with levamisole; it kills all types of worms. Fish can live a long time with worms so you won't need that on hand. Just buy it when you need it. Best medicine is lots of clean fresh water.

I find this to be the hardest thing depending on where you live. But I second and full heartedly agree

[Willie]

It's great that you have a quarantine tank set up beforehand. Nothing to add to the list of medication on hand, except for salt. To me, medications as pretty much of a last resort.

When a discus gets sick, it immediately goes into the quarantine tank. I crank up the temperature to ~95F and add a lot of salt (1 tablespoon/gal). Immediately, you can see that the fish feels better. The fins unfold, the colors lighten up and the fish moves to a mid-water position, and may even nibble at food. I hold fish for at least a week under these conditions and the fish often gets better on its own. If it doesn't, then I go the medication route. In most cases, fish are stressed by shipping and moving between different tank conditions. A little TLC can go a long ways. To do this, you'll need a heater than can bring the temperature into the mid-90's and a filter that does a lot of aeration.

I recently came across a 20 Gal tall tank that I've repurposed for quarantine and medication. It has a 10-Gal footprint, but is twice as high. The nice thing about this tank is that I can fill it up half way to use as a 10-Gal hospital tank, which saves on medication, salt and heaters.

[BrendanJ23]

Yep have to agree. Best advice I ever received was lots of clean fresh water, and a bag of salt on hand. However if you do need to go medication route, metro(internal issues) and tetracycline or kanamycin (external issues) are effective. Just make sure you have lots of aeration when medicating a tank, or raising the temp of a tank.

[seanyuki]

Read all you can about the chemical/product you are going to use to verify pretreatment conditions. Conditions such as temperature, PH, lighting, etc. This is extremely important! Also side effects using the product.

[Pet Detective]

I am new to the forum and am browsing threads as I prepare to upgrade my 65 gal planted tank to a discus tank. I currently have a vacant 36 gallon tank that I plan to use as a nursery tank for plants and a quarantine tank when needed. After reading this thread, I don't think my plan is going to work, especially if salt is the "go to" remedy for treating discus and raising the temp to above 90 degrees.
On this note, what would be the best use of my 36 gallon tank? I also have a 10 gallon tank that I can incorporate into my perfect arrangement. For now I just need to know what the experts think would be the best use of all the equipment I currently have. Which includes a Co2 system for the plants, a penn-plax cascade external filter, a new thermostat controlled heater unit, and a UV filter and a fancy wancy programable lighting system and a ph monitor. The 36 gal tank only has a simple interchangeable filter and a heater unit that needs to be replaced. Thanks in advance for responding to my post.

[LizStreithorst]

I would never be without PP, Metro, and Levamasol. The one I use most often if Metro but even that I use rarely. But if you use nothing but good clean water your fish will be fine for a very long time if they're properly cleaned up by the seller.

[Iminit]

Well like the rest I’m with clean water. I’ve had no meds in my house till a few weeks ago. I had a cross contamination hit both my tanks. Bought some new discus and even though they were in qt in another room I still managed to contaminate both tanks. Never dealing with it before I came here for help. Salt was recommended and a few days later rid-ich plus was recommended. Using these my discus all survived. So rid-ich plus the larger bottle. I used for 14 days.