Fin and tail rot, please help!

[jihbang]

SimplyDiscus Team & Sponsor


Join Date: May 2002
Location: Burlington, Toronto ONTARIO CANADA
Posts: 3,368
iTrader: 1 (100%)




Disease Questionnaire - please complete

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Please complete the questionnaire if your fish are sick (copy and paste)

DISEASE QUESTIONNAIRE


Problem

1. Please explain the problems with your fish/when and how they started
This is actually my second attempt at keeping discus in my 60 gallon planted tank. My previous attempt failed with rotting fins and tail eventually consuming my three discuses and angels. This time I was determined to follow everything by the book and keep my water quality as best as I can. I bought three discuses, one marlboro red, two turquois about 2.5-3" long. They were fine and healthy when I got them, but after 1 and 1/2 weeks, I noticed the tail and other fins started to look frayed and has almost a whittish ourter border and gets worse day by day as the fraying and white borders expand. One of the turquois looks expecially worse as it has lost its natural vibrant color and now looks dark, emaciated, with flaking lateral dorsal area. But they all eat very actively as I feed them daily with frozen bloodworms and brine shrimp. This is like nightmare all over again for me.




2. Symptoms (i.e. turning dark, excess slime, not eating, clamped fins, flashing, darting, clamped gills, white/yellow/green poop, hiding, headstanding or tailstanding, white on tips of fins, rotting or fungus, blisters/ white zits on fish, bloated, cloudy eyes, wounds)
rotting tail and fins with white border, turning dark, emaciated





3. What medications/ treatments that you have already tried and results. Include dosages and duration of treatment.
Maracyn for 4 days now, does not seem to help. Tried to decrease PH from 7.0 to 6.8. Have added salt (1 tablespoon/ 5 gallons) and beneficial bacteria supplements.




Tank/Water

4. Tank size and age, number and size of fish
60 gallon, 2 and 1/2 years old, 10 rummynose tetras, 2 neon tetras, 2 bosemani rainbows (2" and 1"), 1 neon rainbow(1/2"), 1 pleco (31/2")


5. Water change regime/ how long has tank been running/ bare bottom or gravel/ do you age your water?
10% change weekly, gravel mixed with eco-complete, water from municipal but treated with water softener at home and RO


6 Parameters and water source;

- temp _86____

- ph __6.8___

- ammonia reading __0ppm__

- nitrite reading __0ppm__

- nitrate reading __0ppm__

- well water ____

- municipal water __yes__

7. Any new fish/plants added recently
some Amazon sword plants

[pcsb23]

Ok, Fin/Tail rot is normally caused by stress and the single biggest stressor is poor water quality. This in conjunction with being moved to a new tank makes fish vulnerable.

It is of no use treating the fin rot without first resolving the cause. A 10% water change per week is far too little so this will need to be increased. In the first instance you may need to do daily w/c of 33 to 50%, but going forward a minimum of 2 x 50% w/c week will be necessary.

I note this is a planted tank, adding salt to a panted tank will kill the plants, this will further compromise the water quality. More information about the water softener you use would help, if its a domestic water softener then I would stop using it now. A mix of RO and tap water filtered over carbon or tretaed with pime or amquel would be much better. Don't bother with the beneficial bcteria supplements, waste of time and money imo.

The nitrate reading of 0 is suspicious, either your kit is wrong or the tank is not fully cycled, even planted tanks show some nitrate.

Do you have a qt/hospital tank? If so I would get that prepared as its much easier to treat in a qt tank. Did you qt the discus at all?

If you don't have a qt tank then do as large w/c as you can using clean water, preferably aged and preheted. I would remove the plants to a bucket of clean water too, they will die otherwise. Make sure the gravel/substrate is as clean as possible. As these are juvenile fish it would be much better to grow them out in a BB tank, it is worth considering this. The tank needs to be wiped down, walls, pipes, heaters. I would remove all decorations too, if any.

The antibiotic will also have affected water quality. So I would stop for now. I would dip the fish either in a srong salt solution or a PP dip, if there is any open wound do not use PP. I personally would not salt the tank, but it can help to suppress bacterlal infections, I would prefer to use acriflavine though in the tank. Use acriflavine at 1 drop per gallon.

For a salt dip: in a clean bucket put a gallon of clean water, add 2 to 3 tablespoons of salt per gallon. Place the fish in there for 20 mins or until it rolls. Return to tank. Dip them every day for 5 days or so.

hth,

[greyhoundfan]

Dirty water and stress caused the tail fin wrot. Same thing happened to one of my discus before. Tail melted right in front of my eyes.

I isolated him in a QT tank and did daily water changes. After about a month or so tail fully regenerated.. No problems at all now.

Just keep the water clean.

[jihbang]

Thanks for responding to my need. But pcsb23, why is the domestic softened water, which is indeed what I'm using, bad for discus?

[Timbo]

hi jihbang

i grew up in burlington too :) anyway, couple things that pcsb23 said are quite important-

-your test kit is probably not accurate. you should have a reading of some kind on either the ammonia, nitrite or nitrate test. actually with your "current" water change schedule, your nitrates should be through the roof. discus seem to be more sensitive to nitrates than most fish. if you are sure this tank is fully cycled, something is wrong with the nitrate test.

-water changes: 10% week will not work very well long-term for discus. i do 40% every day. some folks do more, some less (but not by much) its one of the challenges of discus, you need to change ALOT of water versus other fish

- re water softening: juvie discus require minerals in the water for proper skeletal development. the only time soft water is preferred is for spawning

get those w/c's up and watch your discus improve!

[pcsb23]

Thanks for responding to my need. But pcsb23, why is the domestic softened water, which is indeed what I'm using, bad for discus?

My understanding of domestic water softeners is that they replace some minerals in the water with other salts -not sodium chloride or table salt - but salts in the calcium chlorate type. This water is usually not fit for human consumption, but if yours is one of the newer ion exhchange then maybe its ok. RandalB is the expert on these things, its certainly not me :)

[jihbang]

So I hear you all that rigorous daily water changes seems to be the key to discus success. But I'm wondering just out of curiosity what most discus keepers are using as clean water source and how are they storing them? With this large amount of water demand, is there a feasible way to obtain a plentiful supply of clean water?

[greyhoundfan]

I guess it depends on space.

I have a Brute 64 Gallon and 50 Gallon trash bins to age my water. It's aerated, heated and treated with prime. I do 70% water changes every other day. I have a 100 G with adults and sub adults and 40 G with 4 juvie BDs.

Some people use tanks or rubbermaid containers. Possibilities are endless.