could homemade Co2 , be causing this infection

[buster]

Hi, my first post.
and a sad one..
ok here goes, ive got 6 discus 5 small and 1 medium, in a 60 gallon planted tank. I do 1 30g water change a week.
Tank has been running for 6 months with no problems at all.

Filteration consists of a -
fluval 304
and a home made wet dry filter

nitrates about 5.0
nitites 0
ammonia 0
ph is 6.8
temp 86f

heres what happened, I dosed the tank with copper sulphate to get rid of snails, most of the snails were killed :)
Then I did a 70% water change to take out the copper sulphate twice in 1 week, everything was fine.

The next week I noticed that the grass that I have growing was dying all other plants ok.
So I weeded out the dead grass.

then I noticed that the blue diamond had a small patch on its eye that was cloudy, so I began to increase water changes to 25g change every day after ageing the water for 24 hours with declorinator added.

1 week later I noticed a circle like mark on its tail, 2 days later the entire circle area had began to look like fin rot and on its right side a new area of the same circle like marks were there but this time in a C formation.

Another week later the fish is looking bad but still eating I
am still doing water changes but now a few more fish have the same markings on them and also have cloudy eyes.

yesterday I decided to add 2-phenoxyethonol anti fungus & fin rot , all ok.

Today I went down to borrow a freinds camera to take some picsof the fish to post here, but after returning back, a what was healthy fish the blue snakeskin was on the bottom of the tank upside down, so I moved it to a hospital tank but I think it is too late for it, as its breathing is very laboured.

I imediatly did a 80% water change in the main tank I also noticed a strange odour, could that be the 2-phenoxyethonol ?
I will be doing another 50% water change tonight to try and remove all traces of the 2-phenoxyethonol and also tommorow I will do another 80% water change.
Water parameters all appear to be ok , the test kits are only a 2 months old..

I have removed the home made CO2

please help

Col

[buster]

I have also noticed that the siam ruby has now got a few of the same circle like marks on its side and is also swimming on its side but otherwise seems ok ..

Col

[Carol_Roberts]

Your picture looks alot like the picture of Chilodonella on page 19 of Handbook of fish diseases. This link will take you to the picture and an article by Steelhead.
http://forum.simplydiscus.com//index.php?board=4;action=display;threadid=1077;sta rt=0

If this sounds like your problem there have been a few more posts dealing with this disease. Use the "search" button at the top middle of page. Type in Chilodonella (set search for 365 days) and read the articles - they are from last summer.
Carol :heart1:

[buster]

Thanks Carol :)

The blue snakeskin is dead now , strange because it didnt have much infection on it , however ive got a decent microscope and will be taking skin scrapes to see if this mite is present , ill let you all know what happens, hopefully no more dead one's ...


Col

[buster]

The blue diamond which originaly had the first signs of this infection is now dead, pity as this was my favourite. Came back from my mum's 2hours later and its dead.

I must admit ime dreading going to sleep only to find another 1 dead probably the siam ruby 'which seems ok'
but let you know in the morning..

Col

[buster]

Ok I couldnt go to bed without doing a skin scrape and a gill scrape..

The small gill biopsy showed 1 gill fluke per slide which acording to the doc's page is normal..

The skin scrape showed what I hope to be Chilodonella.

I had some Sterazin and added some to the tank , plus increased the temp, hopefully all will be well in the morning..

goodnight

Col

[buster]

the 5 remaining fish are still alive, the siam ruby, though swimming on its side, is ok, so far...

I raised the temp eventually to 90 over a few days
added salt, to ease the infection
added sterazin to kill the parasite's

any advice would be nice incase the above fails..

Col

[Carol_Roberts]

This isn't a problem we run into very often. There is no other advice I can give you. Good luck!
Carol :heart1:

[Ardan]

Hi,
High heat + 95F for up to 10 days kills most parasites. Salt at up to 1 tblsp/gallon also can help with stress and parasites. I am not familiar with sterazin or its effects with high heat.

If it gets worse, it could be bacterial rather than parasite.

When examining for parasites it must be done while the fish is alive or imediately upon the fishes death or the parasite dies or leaves the fish.

hth
Ardan

[buster]

Hi again,
So far no more fish have died , although all are showing signs of the infection ranging from a ring like mark about 2 - 7mm in size, which will eventually change to fin erosion, if present on a fin.

The siam ruby seems to be ok, though swimming on its side a little bit, but not as much as yesterday :)

Ill let you know what happens as the week draws on.

Col

[buster]

Oh! well, the siam ruby died today, lets hope no more are going to die.. sigh!

I must admit though even though the fish seem to be ok apart from obvious signs of infection, I just dont have much hope :(

mainly because, they can seem to be ok , and then they just die, water quality is spot on , no probs at all.

I suppose we'll see, let you all know ...


Col

[Carol_Roberts]

Skin parasites are often followed by bacterial infections . . .
Sorry, this isn't much fun right now is it.
Carol :heart1:

[buster]

Hi all, and on a happy note all the fish appear to be fine now :)
Thanks for the advice Carol, about the bacterial infection aswell, as since treating them for bacteria, they are all doing fine now.

Col

A happy new year discus owner :P

[Carol_Roberts]

I'm glad to hear your fish recovered. those pictures looked really bad!

Carol :heart1: