Discus Shedding Please Help!!

[lora]

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The Disus in my 72 gallon tank are all sick. Their fins are clamped, they are dark, hanging around the top corner of the tank, like to be around the airstone, and flashing. They have a greyish covering in their bodies, excess slime coat I think, that looks like it is "peeling". Water temps are 85, ph 7.2, nitrates and ammonia are 0. They are also leaning over at times. They are all eating well, and respond to me when I come near. I have tried using salt for the last 2 days, but it does not appear to be helping them. Any ideas? What meds should I try? I don't know if its a parasite, or bacteria.

[Graham]

The odds are this is a parasite...probably something like costia, but without a microscope it hard to be positive...the shedding is excess mucus.

Unless your salt is at 0.3% which is 3 teaspoons per gallon it won't have any affect. I'd look at using a formalin and malachite green med like Quickcure.....

[AADiscus]

What kind of salt are you using? You should be using rock sale or aquarium salt. I think you need to do a large wc and add more oxygen to the tank. Add another air stone or sponge filter. Keep in mind when you use salt do not keep adding salt to the tank unless you are doing a wc. Then if you do a 50% wc then add 50% of the salt needed for the tank. Don't keep putting salt in there without wc's.

[lora]

I am using non iodized salt, 50 percent water changes daily, have added an airstone, and only adding enough salt for the water I have removed.

[lora]

http://i77.photobucket.com/albums/j42/arolm/th_sicdic-1.jpg (http://i77.photobucket.com/albums/j42/arolm/sicdic-1.jpg)

[Green Country Discus]

I agree with Graham. Quick Cure....

[lora]

Thanks for the advice.

[Darren's Discus]

there's a couple of things to use try 2ml of bedadine from any chemist if still no luck get your hands on linco spectin from your vet they use it for pigs,best thing iv'e ever found.

cheers hope they get better.

[lora]

When I posted this, I was on my way to work, and used the meds I had on hand, which was Parasite Clear. Unfortunately between now and then I have lost 3 Discus. I noticed that just after they died, there were some sort of short flat white worms on them, and on the glass. I did get some Quick Cure yesterday, and this morning I did a 80 percent water change and added the quick cure. I don't know if it was good to add the quick cure with the other meds, but I really don't have anything to lose at this point. Hopefully the rest of the Discus will survive this. The good news is that in my other tank my Snow White's spawned last night. It's almost as if they knew I needed something to cheer me up.

[lora]

The Quick Cure seems to be working. The Discus are much better today.

[Graham]

Great....just follow the instructions and do some water chnages between doses. Even when they look like they cleared up continue to follow the dosing protocol

G

[lora]

Thanks Graham! How long should I continue?

[Graham]

Just follow the dosing protocol on the bottle.........

Keep in mind that F&MG will do a job on the nitrifying bacteria also so watch water quality