Fish med advice

[bansart]

Hello everyone,

I have a 55 gallon holding tank with 5 large discus, my filtration is a 404 fluval, 280 emperor, and 2 sponge filter. i do waterchange everyday with same temp water treated with prime in a seperate holding drum.

Heres the problem, I few weeks ago I noticed that one of my discus is sick, by itself in a corner all the time, not eating, etc. I increased the water temp a bit and started wc more often. I noticed white feces, it was encoated with this white slime. i did more water changes and stuff and I have not added any meds. I noticed a few of the feces on the floor are mostly covered in white slime. The fish is now eating a little but its very skinny.

I thought that this problem is now over cause its eating and seems to be doing much better. I received some new fish (younger about 2.5") and i had to put them in that tank temporarily cause I ran itno some trouble with original tank they were going into.. long story short

should I treat the entire tank with metro with the new fish in there?
where can I purchase all three meds online?

metro, praziquantel, etc?

Please Help

[Eddie]

Hello everyone,

I have a 55 gallon holding tank with 5 large discus, my filtration is a 404 fluval, 280 emperor, and 2 sponge filter. i do waterchange everyday with same temp water treated with prime in a seperate holding drum.

Heres the problem, I few weeks ago I noticed that one of my discus is sick, by itself in a corner all the time, not eating, etc. I increased the water temp a bit and started wc more often. I noticed white feces, it was encoated with this white slime. i did more water changes and stuff and I have not added any meds. I noticed a few of the feces on the floor are mostly covered in white slime. The fish is now eating a little but its very skinny.

I thought that this problem is now over cause its eating and seems to be doing much better. I received some new fish (younger about 2.5") and i had to put them in that tank temporarily cause I ran itno some trouble with original tank they were going into.. long story short

should I treat the entire tank with metro with the new fish in there?
where can I purchase all three meds online?

metro, praziquantel, etc?

Please Help

Spironucleus Vortens thrives/lives in the intestines of the fish. Some of these flagellates get excreted through the feces of the sick fish. Discus and other fish very commonly mouth feces and spit it out. If any of the other fish have mouthed the contaminated feces, they can become infected. Since you do not know which fish have or have not, it's best to treat only the affected fish. Thats just my opinion

Eddie

[SriAngel]

From the symptoms your describing it seems to be best suited with a metro treatment. I dose my water at 10mg per Liter, approximately 8 grams per 20 gallon, combined with 2 tablespoons of epsom salt per 10 gallons. The epsom salt seems to have a synergistic effect. However since you have added new fish without QT i suggest a treatment of Praziquintel as well. Now when i first started in the hobby i almost went broke buying meds from the pet store. The best place to buy quality affordable meds is Jehmco.com. I also recommend QT for any new discus fish, I found this thread paticularly helpful when i first started getting discus:

http://forum.simplydiscus.com/showthread.php?t=21044

Best of luck,

Angel

[bansart]

thank you. I was going to qt the discus i just got but my tank was not prepared and didnt want the discus to be left in the bags. Yeah im not sure who is infected or not, it looks like just one but most of the feces from the original 5 that was in there had someone of a white slime to it and some are segmented. If i treat them with the metro.. should i follow up with the anti-tape worm med? I mean not use both at the same time right?

thanks again. they all seem fine except one its just that I am worried that they might all be infected and sooner or later it might come back to me that I didnt med them earlier on when they are still eating and stuff.

thank you again

[bansart]

also how many grams per gallon do I use for the praziquantel?

[SriAngel]

There is usually 3 ways you can buy praziquintel: a pure powder, a cut powder, liquid form Prazipro. If you get the pure powder its 1gram per 100 gallons of water. I would do the prazipro since its a lot easier to measure.

Angel

[bansart]

do you have experience in parasite clear tank buddies in jehmcos site?

Ill take your advice and get the prazipro. How do you dose the prazipro?
also would i be able to treat with prazi at the same time with metro or would this be disasterous and should treat them with one med at a time?

sorry for all the questions, im a lil new a fish meds for discus. thanks for all the advice btw

[Eddie]

From the symptoms your describing it seems to be best suited with a metro treatment. I dose my water at 10mg per Liter, approximately 8 grams per 20 gallon, combined with 2 tablespoons of epsom salt per 10 gallons. The epsom salt seems to have a synergistic effect. However since you have added new fish without QT i suggest a treatment of Praziquintel as well. Now when i first started in the hobby i almost went broke buying meds from the pet store. The best place to buy quality affordable meds is Jehmco.com. I also recommend QT for any new discus fish, I found this thread paticularly helpful when i first started getting discus:

http://forum.simplydiscus.com/showthread.php?t=21044

Best of luck,

Angel

Angel,

You dose 8 grams of metro per 20 gallons of water? :confused:


Eddie

[SriAngel]

do you have experience in parasite clear tank buddies in jehmcos site?

Ill take your advice and get the prazipro. How do you dose the prazipro?
also would i be able to treat with prazi at the same time with metro or would this be disasterous and should treat them with one med at a time?

sorry for all the questions, im a lil new a fish meds for discus. thanks for all the advice btw

No Problem,

I would dose seperately and allow a couple of days inbetween treatment. This is done for the longterm health of the fish internal organs and thus its longevity. You dont want to win the battle and lose the war so to speak. The first priority would be for me the metro treatment, 12 days of treatment. Jehmco also sells medicated metro flakes that is good to feed after that treatment. Then i would go to the petstore get some prazipro and treat them with it, as Jehmco does not sell that product, or ask john to explain how to use the powder. Make sure to ask for a measuring spoon. I use a digital scale to weigh my meds, i picked it up at staples. The scale is more accurate in my opinion. However asses your budget and do what best works for you.

If you have questions pm me, i usually peruse the photo gallery section of this forum, and sometimes very tardy with my responses on the other sections.

Regards,
Angel

[SriAngel]

do you have experience in parasite clear tank buddies in jehmcos site?

Ill take your advice and get the prazipro. How do you dose the prazipro?
also would i be able to treat with prazi at the same time with metro or would this be disasterous and should treat them with one med at a time?

sorry for all the questions, im a lil new a fish meds for discus. thanks for all the advice btw

OH and to answer your main question, no experience with the parasite clear. I prefer to customize the doses of the actual meds so i choose to buy them seperately. The best person for that question is John of Jehmco, he is very helpful and patient.

Angel

[bansart]

thanks sriangel

[bansart]

hello,

i could not sleep thinking about my discuses problems. I have read the sticky on metro and prazipro. i am still a little unclear on the dosage of prazipro and how to use it. how much prazipro per gallons?

how many hours or days before a redose and water change?

how long should the treatment be?

also i dont have a weighting scale for the metro (mg). anyway i can measure with out having to buy a scale?

I am kinda getting desperate and might pick up some jungle parasite clear tommorow but the more i read in the stickys the more i kinda wanna stay away from it. it seems more often than not that ppl have had problems with the jungle parasite clear meds.

any answers to my question is greatly appreciated. thank you again in advance.

[poconogal]

The directions on the Prazi Pro bottle give the dosage amounts and frequency of treatment. I would start with that, but you can dose at 1-1/2 times the recommended amount with no ill effect, some double the dose. Prazi Pro is gentle. I know there are people using increased dosages but my recollection is that they are doing that mostly for stubborn fluke cases.

For Metro I dose 1/8 teaspoon per 10 gals. of water, twice a day for 5 days, temp at 92, but 93 if you can. Increase aeration too. Metro loses its effectiveness after about 8 hrs. so I dose 12 hrs. apart, with a 50% WC before the second dose. Metro is hard to OD with, so for Metro I wouldn't worry about a scale. For other types of meds, a scale would be necessary though.

[SriAngel]

hello,

i could not sleep thinking about my discuses problems. I have read the sticky on metro and prazipro. i am still a little unclear on the dosage of prazipro and how to use it. how much prazipro per gallons?

how many hours or days before a redose and water change?

how long should the treatment be?

also i dont have a weighting scale for the metro (mg). anyway i can measure with out having to buy a scale?

I am kinda getting desperate and might pick up some jungle parasite clear tommorow but the more i read in the stickys the more i kinda wanna stay away from it. it seems more often than not that ppl have had problems with the jungle parasite clear meds.

any answers to my question is greatly appreciated. thank you again in advance.

Now that its morning,

I vaguely recall using it, with no effect. My opinion is the dosage of the actual meds in the concoction is too weak. Some of the more exotic strains of discus might have bugs that have developed resistance. Try to get a scale if you can, it makes dosing a lot more accurate. If you get the meds from jehmco they have this plastic scoop that approximately will get you a gram per scoop.
I dont know where you live, but im in New York and when i order from Jehmco i get my stuff the next day, without ever paying for express or overnight fees.
As for the priorities in the medications, is the white poop segmented or is it thick mucous like?

[brewmaster15]

Hello everyone,

I have a 55 gallon holding tank with 5 large discus, my filtration is a 404 fluval, 280 emperor, and 2 sponge filter. i do waterchange everyday with same temp water treated with prime in a seperate holding drum.

Heres the problem, I few weeks ago I noticed that one of my discus is sick, by itself in a corner all the time, not eating, etc. I increased the water temp a bit and started wc more often. I noticed white feces, it was encoated with this white slime. i did more water changes and stuff and I have not added any meds. I noticed a few of the feces on the floor are mostly covered in white slime. The fish is now eating a little but its very skinny.

I thought that this problem is now over cause its eating and seems to be doing much better. I received some new fish (younger about 2.5") and i had to put them in that tank temporarily cause I ran itno some trouble with original tank they were going into.. long story short

should I treat the entire tank with metro with the new fish in there?
where can I purchase all three meds online?

metro, praziquantel, etc?

Please Help

Hi,
Can you post some pictures of your fish, both healthy and the sick one?

Thanks,
al

[bansart]

hello everyone,

Thank you for replying. The poop, I did not pay attention to it for awhile thinking they are all ok cause all were eating except one (thinking he was just being bullied or something). the poop from what I remember was had a white mucus coating on it but not segmented, but now that i read the stickys some of the poops i see has some segementation with white mucus coating (not alot of white but visible enough to cause alarm).

Ill get pictures in ASAP.


heres some info on the tank
the tank is 55gallons with fluval 404, emperor 280, 2 sponge filters.
ph 7.2-7.4
temp 84-86
water change is 25-50% daily and vacum every time after they eat except when I am at work.

inhabitants:

5 large 4-5" discus
plus the sick 3" discus that stayed small due to sickness

9 sterbai cory (their going to get moved soon to my other tank)

1 3" rubber nose pleco

also temporarily holding
12 2.5" discus

Its sounds over crowded but i do alot of wc and have other tanks their gonna go into soon (just not setup yet).

thank you again

[bansart]

43299

the smaller one is the sick one, this two fish were the same size when i got em last year november, i thought he got a lil stunted when he got sick and thought he recovered cause he was nibbling the food a bit. I didnt really pay too much attention cause I thought he was just stressed due to the other discus (establishing pecking order)

I couldnt attach anymore pics cause of the restricted file size, i have already cropped and saved it as super low quality but its still over 85kb. Im gonna try and upload it through aquariacentral.

Behavior: i noticed that the larger discus used to eat like pihranhas and now their a lil more calm and just nibbly, not as aggresive (could they be infected?)

how will the 2.5" discus hold up to medication?

should I treat with pranzi then metro, the other way around or it doesn make a difference?

im currently waiting for my order from jehmco (i just barely placed it today it will probably take 3-4 days), their not gonna die anytime soon are they??!!

also they told me that the prazipro is $5 because it expires this month but its still good. is it? will it still be effective?

Thank you again for your help fellow discus hobbyist.

[bansart]

Hello everyone,

I qt the fish in the pircture,

I also wanted to ask how do you guys physically get a sample of gill flukes for the microscope? or is diagnosis based on symptoms.

a few times now ive had two of the discus had one of their gills breathing hard and open wide but the other one is shut closed.

could this be flukes?

thanks again for any advice

[Eddie]

Hello everyone,

I qt the fish in the pircture,

I also wanted to ask how do you guys physically get a sample of gill flukes for the microscope? or is diagnosis based on symptoms.

a few times now ive had two of the discus had one of their gills breathing hard and open wide but the other one is shut closed.

could this be flukes?

thanks again for any advice

Hey there Bansart, some symptoms can lead you to a culprit, depending on what the combination of symptoms may be. It's kind of a learning experience. I don't own a microscope and not sure if I want one. LOL

Other symptoms of flukes are flashing, scratching, rubbing on items in the tank. As is the fish is irritated by something and trying to get it off. One gill function can be a sign.

Always check water parameters before moving to meds. Ensure you have no ammonia/nitrite readings.

Eddie

[bansart]

Hi Eddie,

Thanks for the advice. Yeah all this discus med research had me searching online for a microscope.

My water is pretty prestine. I keep an eye on everything even temp flactuations for night and daytime. i even shut the filter during feeding time so that no food can fowl the filter media and then vacum after they eat.

Its weird cause all of em are eating and they all seem fine but every now and then I would notice one of the big one ( this was about two months ago) trying to scratch his head against a piece of amazon leaf but this behavior went away. then recently one of the small ones had one gill breathing hard and the other shut. and another small one trying to scratch his head on the filter intake then not anymore. hmmm , I guess if their eating and they seem fine I just keep the water prestine.

BTW. I found a childrens microscope in one of my cabinets still in a box (for gift purpose i think). I used it on their feces to check for any sign of parasite and stuff and didnt find any. hehe this microscope is the one you hold the flashlight into a mirror and goes up to 300x.

Thank You Again

Update: I think its time to medicate, I just saw two of the big ones fluttering (shaking) and then darting towards the intake tube and sponge tube trying to hit their gills on it. I think they have flukes, can prazipro take care of this?

Ivan

[ShinShin]

Bansart,

Personally, I would not even waste a dime trying to treat the sick one you have. It will never be a good discus. I would just euthanize it.

Mat

[Daniella]

Can you imagine if we would apply this rule to humans?



Bansart,

Personally, I would not even waste a dime trying to treat the sick one you have. It will never be a good discus. I would just euthanize it.

Mat

[Eddie]

Can you imagine if we would apply this rule to humans?

Fish are pets and in no way can you compare them to humans. A fish dies, you go buy another one for 30 bucks sometimes more, sometimes less.

Eddie

[ShinShin]

D,

My mind nor my imagination entertains such a silly comparison as that. I don't subscribe to the idea that "fish are people, too". The said discus is infested with intestinal parasites at such a stage that the humane thing to do is to end it's misery.

Actually, come to think of it, some people do subscribe to that idea you stated. I believe the people of Oregon, for one, and I thought your country, as well, are putting people out of their misery before nature (or God, if that's your thing) does.

Mat

[Disgirl]

I am interested in learning the correct way to quickly euthanize a discus in case I ever need to do it. I have used ice water for small fish before but never had a fish as large as a discus. How do you do this? Thanks for info.
Barbara

[ShinShin]

Barbara,

I put them in a bag of tank water and place them in the freezer most of the time. Their metabolism just slows down until they die painlessly. Sometimes, though, I simply slam them in the utility sink in my fishroom. That, too, is painless and fast.

Mat