Barb Newell
07-27-2002, 07:29 PM
Hi all, well it is over....... :'(:'(
I lost all but one of my babies between yesterday evening and today. The last one isn't too bad but I imagine it's just a matter of time.
I've been battling with this for 4+ months now. I started with 11 young discus, I'm down to one.
I want to thank all of you for the support, encouragement, wealth of information, understanding and for being there for me, sometimes many times a day (I REALLY do mean it). Thank you. You are a great group of people! I'd like to name all of you but you know who you are.
My fish haven't been well from day one. It was my first experience in buying discus and I really didn't think anything of the quick breathing and odd clamped gill and flashing. A friend of mine took one look at them 4 days after I brought them home and said "gill flukes". That's when it began and hasn't ended until this morning when the last 4 died.
The person I bought them from assured me that they were in PERFECT health, he stressed that he would never sell sick discus under any circumstances (I believed him) and he said DO NOT MEDICATE, it's not necessary. My mistake, I should have QT'd them, I know that now, didn't know it then. Panacur, Metro and Prazi to begin. Being new at discus keeping, I tried to do everything perfect. Stayed faithful to my water changes, kept the tank very clean, fed them well....
They never got better. I think I've tried almost every treatment imanginable, every dip, bath, tank treatment, some antibiotics. I treated for flukes from day one, then some parasites in the GI tract, then infection. Looking back, I imagine that I got rid of the flukes some time ago and that the constant gill problems were the nematodes moving into the gills. What I didn't treat for killed them, and I couldn't see them there. Today, those worms feel like silent killers. My fish had worms (nematodes, roundworms the vet believes) which I imagine started in the stomach, no symptoms except gill clamping/flashing. They had normal poop, eating well, growing, looked healthy. I did treat with Metro but that didn't kill these. They moved, again silently into the muscle of my fish. A while ago I posted that my fish had 'white things/spots/worms' coming out of them--
they looked like ***** pimples, some sort of infection that seemed to go away with salt and clean water. They were in fact these d.... worms sticking out of their sides. I tried Clout, salt baths, formalin dips, Prazi. The worms disappeared and I assumed that whatever it was was gone. They then moved to the gills. By the time I realized that they were in the gills it really was too late. Some worms were actually hanging out of their gills and mouths in the last few days, I tried to get one with tweezers to take it to my vet, it withdrew so quickly. Yesterday, I desperately tried salt baths, formalin baths, meth blue baths, prazi bath tring to save my babies. Believe it or not, the worms survived the treatments (I did find a few in the meth blue and tank, but only a few). My fish went downhill REAL fast, they couldn't breathe. It was time for them to die. I realized that I couldn't save them, told them I was sorry, said good-bye and helped them die. Some may say that I tried for too long to save them, that I should have let them die some time ago, but the truth is that I loved those little fish and hoped to see them grow to adults.
Well, thank you all again. I hope to find some new babies in a month or so, healthy babies. Any sugguestions?
Take care,
Barb
I lost all but one of my babies between yesterday evening and today. The last one isn't too bad but I imagine it's just a matter of time.
I've been battling with this for 4+ months now. I started with 11 young discus, I'm down to one.
I want to thank all of you for the support, encouragement, wealth of information, understanding and for being there for me, sometimes many times a day (I REALLY do mean it). Thank you. You are a great group of people! I'd like to name all of you but you know who you are.
My fish haven't been well from day one. It was my first experience in buying discus and I really didn't think anything of the quick breathing and odd clamped gill and flashing. A friend of mine took one look at them 4 days after I brought them home and said "gill flukes". That's when it began and hasn't ended until this morning when the last 4 died.
The person I bought them from assured me that they were in PERFECT health, he stressed that he would never sell sick discus under any circumstances (I believed him) and he said DO NOT MEDICATE, it's not necessary. My mistake, I should have QT'd them, I know that now, didn't know it then. Panacur, Metro and Prazi to begin. Being new at discus keeping, I tried to do everything perfect. Stayed faithful to my water changes, kept the tank very clean, fed them well....
They never got better. I think I've tried almost every treatment imanginable, every dip, bath, tank treatment, some antibiotics. I treated for flukes from day one, then some parasites in the GI tract, then infection. Looking back, I imagine that I got rid of the flukes some time ago and that the constant gill problems were the nematodes moving into the gills. What I didn't treat for killed them, and I couldn't see them there. Today, those worms feel like silent killers. My fish had worms (nematodes, roundworms the vet believes) which I imagine started in the stomach, no symptoms except gill clamping/flashing. They had normal poop, eating well, growing, looked healthy. I did treat with Metro but that didn't kill these. They moved, again silently into the muscle of my fish. A while ago I posted that my fish had 'white things/spots/worms' coming out of them--
they looked like ***** pimples, some sort of infection that seemed to go away with salt and clean water. They were in fact these d.... worms sticking out of their sides. I tried Clout, salt baths, formalin dips, Prazi. The worms disappeared and I assumed that whatever it was was gone. They then moved to the gills. By the time I realized that they were in the gills it really was too late. Some worms were actually hanging out of their gills and mouths in the last few days, I tried to get one with tweezers to take it to my vet, it withdrew so quickly. Yesterday, I desperately tried salt baths, formalin baths, meth blue baths, prazi bath tring to save my babies. Believe it or not, the worms survived the treatments (I did find a few in the meth blue and tank, but only a few). My fish went downhill REAL fast, they couldn't breathe. It was time for them to die. I realized that I couldn't save them, told them I was sorry, said good-bye and helped them die. Some may say that I tried for too long to save them, that I should have let them die some time ago, but the truth is that I loved those little fish and hoped to see them grow to adults.
Well, thank you all again. I hope to find some new babies in a month or so, healthy babies. Any sugguestions?
Take care,
Barb