What meds to buy before getting discus?

[90 Gallons of Fun]

Hi everyone,

This is my first post. I am new to SD and have been reading these forums non-stop for about a week. My head hurts! This is the greatest site I have found on the web. Thank you all for posting your advice, pics and stories, as well as the advice you will be giving me today and in the future.

Anyway, I had discus many years ago and never had much success. Of course, there was nothing like this site back then. I have recently re-set up my 90 gallon tank and I am about ready to get some discus.

My question to you, is what medications do you recommend having on hand before I get my fish? I recall freaking out in the past trying to figure out what to do with my sick discus and LFS not being much help or not open when needed. I wish this site existed back then. I am very excited to get back in to this obsession (hobby.)

Thank you all for loving these fish and being a part of this site.
Rich

[Eddie]

Hey there Rich! Great to meet you and welcome to Simply!

The question about what medications to have on hand comes up alot. In all honesty, if you are anywhere near a petstore, they generally have the things you need.

I am located in Japan, so it takes at least a week to get anything so I do actually keep some chemicals/antibiotics on hand.

External parasite - Potassium Permanganate, Formalin 3, Malachite Green and Anti-fluke life bearer. Also ordinary table salt.

Internal parasite - Metronidazole, Levimasole and Praziquantel. Also, Epsom Salt helps purge the fishes internals.

External/internal bacteria - Furan 2 or Kanamycin. Also ordinary table salt helps the fish during treatment with antibiotics.

Now these are just items I have on hand, not a requirement and definitely only used with strict instructions.

HTH

Eddie

[90 Gallons of Fun]

Thanks Eddie! I will be visiting some LFS this weekend to be prepared.

[Dkarc@Aol.com]

Salt, Formalin, Dechlorinator. IMO anything beyond those you buy extra you'll have on hand for so long waiting for something to happen that it'll eventually expire (been there, done that countless times, espcially with antibiotics). I added dechlorinator on there because having on hand extra stock of dechlorinator is always a good idea. When fish first get sick you can do a world of wonders by increasing water changes and a little salt.

-Ryan

[Eddie]

Thanks Eddie! I will be visiting some LFS this weekend to be prepared.

Sorry you misunderstood, I meant that since you have a LFS, there is no need to get the things now. This is why I mentioned me, being in Japan. You have the chemicals/antibiotics readily available, not me. ;)

Eddie

[Discus-Hans]

Buy good healthy Discus and you only need water and dechlorinator, some food would be helpful lol lol

Spend a little extra on quality Discus and you safe on your medicine cabinet lol lol

Hans

[90 Gallons of Fun]

Eddie - got it - thanks. I did misunderstand.

Ryan - Agreed and already have all three on hand.

Hans - excellent point. Spent time on your website this week, and have already contacted a couple of your local sellers. One of which I have always loved their store, and always thought they had the highest quality discus. Now I understand why. Just a shame (for me - not them) they always sell out so fast.

Thanks all - Rich

[Eddie]

My bad Rich, I should have been more clear. :o Its all good though, no worries.

Take care and all the best!

Eddie

[moik]

Buying quality stock is the best approach ...In the long run you should have some medication on hand like Eddie said for any problems arise...I do not care what you do eventually your going to run into an issue with something..I do not care what anybody's opinion is on this... If you have not had a sick discus or problem yet YOU HAVE NOT BEEN IN THE HOBBY LONG ENOUGH.."THATS A FACT!!!!!!

[Jhhnn]

Obtaining fish from one of our sponsors is a good way to get healthy stock. Nobody's perfect, of course, so it's a good idea to be prepared, anyway.

Know your water. If it has chloramines, you'll need prime, safe, cloram-x or amquel+.

Develop a water changing system before the fish ever arrive. Lots of ways to accomplish that, but you want to be well beyond buckets, because discus require clean water. Frequent water changes are the most surefire way to accomplish that.

Obtain and/or create a variety of foods. My discus get carol's beefheart, eddie's seafood mix, hikari brand frozen bloodworms, mysis and brine shrimp, either spirulina or regular. I order the frozen stuff in lots, either from our sponsor, aquatic foods, or Drs Foster & Smith. Unopened, it seems to keep indefinitely. The discus just look at me like I'm an idiot when I try to feed flakes of any kind... YMMV, of course.

Check your lfs to see what they stock in the way of meds. It varies, a lot. Salt is the easiest and safest thing to use for scrapes and minor fin fraying. I keep Clout on hand, because it's effective and safe against a broad spectrum of external parasites, also metro and kanamycin. I have other stuff that I've ordered but not found a need to use, at all- dimetro and levamisole from Foy's, because they're hard to get if you need 'em. Even if I didn't need it for regular water changes, I'd keep some prime around, because meds can often damage the biofilter.

I've only come back to discus keeping recently, last April, but have had fantastic luck using the conservative methods I've found here. BB tanks, 50% daily water changes using aged, prime conditioned Denver tap water- sponge+ canister or wet/dry filters, ~10gals of tank per fish, *large quantities* of varied foods to grow out teenagers into adults.

I originally bought nine 4" blue scorps from Kenny Cheung. One bloated up and died inexplicably after a couple of weeks. The other 8 did so well that I bought another colony of eight 4" RSxAF, put them in their own tank at the end of June. All now thrive. Can't say enough nice things about Kenny.

[90 Gallons of Fun]

Thanks Jhnnn