Frustrating!!!!

[mugzy213]

I finished yesterday treating my 40 gal BB tank in anti flukes and all seem to be breathing with two gills. Still breathing heavy tho. Now they very very listless. They just sit in the corner and do nothing few well eat. One fish has his nose to the floor. I have been going 60% daily WC's temp is at 85.

I don't really know what to do now? Should I just keep doing WC? and wait and see? I know its probably hard for you to tell me what to do but any ideas id appreciate.

I used prazi and anti flukes....\

my water after a Wc are as follows,

I use aged water 24 hours i add novaqua plus and also add kent ro right

amm.0
niti 0
nita0
ph 6.7
a tds reading of 110

here is a video

http://i660.photobucket.com/albums/uu326/Discus213/th_DSCN2845.jpg (http://s660.photobucket.com/albums/uu326/Discus213/?action=view&current=DSCN2845.flv)

http://i660.photobucket.com/albums/uu326/Discus213/th_DSCN2846.jpg (http://s660.photobucket.com/albums/uu326/Discus213/?action=view&current=DSCN2846.flv)

[joanr]

You might try reducing some of their stress by covering the sides and back of your tank with a light pastel blue or green window film or similiar product. It makes them feel more secure. Stressed out fish will be more prone to disease and have less resistance to parasites and flukes etc. The anti-fluke treatment usually gets re-dosed in 4 days with lights out to catch the fluke egg hatchlings. Don't know if you have finished the treatment or not, but you should not mix Prazi with the Anti-Fluke med.

[mugzy213]

You might try reducing some of their stress by covering the sides and back of your tank with a light pastel blue or green window film or similiar product. It makes them feel more secure. Stressed out fish will be more prone to disease and have less resistance to parasites and flukes etc. The anti-fluke treatment usually gets re-dosed in 4 days with lights out to catch the fluke egg hatchlings. Don't know if you have finished the treatment or not, but you should not mix Prazi with the Anti-Fluke med.

Thanks I will do that to the sides. I didn't know I had to redose after 4 days. Good to know.

I didn't mix prazi and anti. I used prazi last month.

Another question prazi is a de-wiener right?

[joanr]

You may need to re-dose, the fluke meds do not kill the eggs, you have to catch them in their hatching cycle, do good water changes in between dosing, to get rid of all the med before dosing them again. Don't re-dose if they don't jump back from the first dose and are still acting abnormally. Check back here first with Eddy. He is on the road right now but should be back online soon.

Ok, the Prazi is good for a mild case of flukes but the flukes are becoming resistant to this med. It also kills tape worms, not all worms. For the most common worms found in Discus you'd need to dose Levamisole or medicated flake with Fenbendazole. Never dose anything without good cause, sometimes just reducing stress and improving water conditions can do a world of good. Keep an eye on your water parameters, anti-fluke will kill off a lot of your good bacteria in the filters. It will build back up but you need to make sure no ammo or nitrites spike.

[mugzy213]

Thx:)

another question. If a fish is pointing down doesn't that mean internal pariste?

What do you treat for syptoms like that?


You may need to re-dose, the fluke meds do not kill the eggs, you have to catch them in their hatching cycle, do good water changes in between dosing, to get rid of all the med before dosing them again. Don't re-dose if they don't jump back from the first dose and are still acting abnormally. Check back here first with Eddy. He is on the road right now but should be back online soon.

Ok, the Prazi is good for a mild case of flukes but the flukes are becoming resistant to this med. It also kills tape worms, not all worms. For the most common worms found in Discus you'd need to dose Levamisole or medicated flake with Fenbendazole. Never dose anything without good cause, sometimes just reducing stress and improving water conditions can do a world of good. Keep an eye on your water parameters, anti-fluke will kill off a lot of your good bacteria in the filters. It will build back up but you need to make sure no ammo or nitrites spike.

[Chad Hughes]

In my humble opinion I would stop with the chemicals. Looking at the video, your fish are stressed and likely disoriented. The tank requires some points of reference, specifically the bottom. You've got to cover the bottom (at the very least) with something and it has to come in direct contact with the glass. The fish are looking at themselves in the reflection of the glass. They have no reference. The same thing happens when you put a fish in a bag and hold it up in the air. They freak out.

From the video, the fish are young fry and are pretty stressed. I would expect rapid breathing, especially with fry and even more so with stressed fry. This will also affect their feeding. A stressed discus doesn't readily hit the buffet line.

Fix the environment and give it a few days. keep lights low if you can or cover part of the top of the tank so there is a shady spot. Your tank looks pretty bright for not having a substrate, amplifing the reflection.

Hope that helps!

**EDIT** I just noticed that your TDS is on the low end and you are using Kent RO right. Is this tap water or are you filtering your water? If you are using RO, why? If this is your tap, what is the TDS out of the tap? The RO right could be causing problems. Never tinker with water chemistry unless it's absolutely necessary AND you can kep parameters constant.

[joanr]

+1 again, that's the first thing I noticed while viewing the video. Glare from all sides and bottom of tank. No wonder the little guys are breathing heavily.

[jimg]

I found the anti fluke will make them very skittish and pale. It was also suggested not to use anti fluke above 80 deg. don't know if it's true but when I used it I lowered temp to 80 just to be safe.
I would continue with plenty of wc's no meds until your sure of what they have

[mugzy213]

Update...


still not really eating and still breathing hard.


I covered all sides and put gravel one the left side and see if they would stay on the side with the gravel...

so far 6 on one side 5 on the other:)

does the lighting look better now? i turn the lights so there not as bright. and added gravel to see if it helps with the brightness.

btw... gravel is just temporary

http://i660.photobucket.com/albums/uu326/Discus213/th_DSCN2847.jpg (http://s660.photobucket.com/albums/uu326/Discus213/?action=view&current=DSCN2847.mp4)

[joanr]

That's much better than before, you may try turning off the tank lights early and let them relax in semi-darkness. Do 50% W/C everyday. What are you feeding them? They are still so small they may like some frozen Hikari bloodworms just to get them interested in eating again.

[mugzy213]

That's much better than before, you may try turning off the tank lights early and let them relax in semi-darkness. Do 50% W/C everyday. What are you feeding them? They are still so small they may like some frozen Hikari bloodworms just to get them interested in eating again.

Live blackworms and well trying to get them to eat beef heart.

[mugzy213]

Chad,

my tds out of the tap is 027. I run my water through a kold ster il unit,

I add Kent ro right to get at higher reading. What should my tds be? 150?

Should I be doing something else?








In my humble opinion I would stop with the chemicals. Looking at the video, your fish are stressed and likely disoriented. The tank requires some points of reference, specifically the bottom. You've got to cover the bottom (at the very least) with something and it has to come in direct contact with the glass. The fish are looking at themselves in the reflection of the glass. They have no reference. The same thing happens when you put a fish in a bag and hold it up in the air. They freak out.

From the video, the fish are young fry and are pretty stressed. I would expect rapid breathing, especially with fry and even more so with stressed fry. This will also affect their feeding. A stressed discus doesn't readily hit the buffet line.

Fix the environment and give it a few days. keep lights low if you can or cover part of the top of the tank so there is a shady spot. Your tank looks pretty bright for not having a substrate, amplifing the reflection.

Hope that helps!

**EDIT** I just noticed that your TDS is on the low end and you are using Kent RO right. Is this tap water or are you filtering your water? If you are using RO, why? If this is your tap, what is the TDS out of the tap? The RO right could be causing problems. Never tinker with water chemistry unless it's absolutely necessary AND you can kep parameters constant.

[joanr]

Blackworms are a nutrituous food but when you feed live foods you are always taking the risk of transmitting parasites to your fish. The jury is still out on this issue, many never having any problems and those that say their fish have been infected by the live worms. I don't want to start a debate on that issue here but you may try the Freeze Dried Blackworms from Al eventually, they will not tranfer any pathogens to your fish and are still very nutritious. Most discus love them. I always feed frozen bloodworms when any of my fish are in QT or recovering from treatments. Seems they will eat them if nothing else until they fully recover. Just my experience with them.

Your TDS is quite low for raising juvies, try just aging your tap water with the Prime or equivalent product in a storage unit, juvies do not need RO water, that is unless there is something really wrong with your tap water. You can adjust this slowly over several days time, you don't want to change anything quickly.

[mugzy213]

Thanks Joan, I look in to getting some freeze dried black worms.

I do age my water. My tds out of my tap Is only 027 so I add ro right to bring it up to 100. I can raise more just by add more to the barrel. Is that what I should do?



Blackworms are a nutrituous food but when you feed live foods you are always taking the risk of transmitting parasites to your fish. The jury is still out on this issue, many never having any problems and those that say their fish have been infected by the live worms. I don't want to start a debate on that issue here but you may try the Freeze Dried Blackworms from Al eventually, they will not tranfer any pathogens to your fish and are still very nutritious. Most discus love them. I always feed frozen bloodworms when any of my fish are in QT or recovering from treatments. Seems they will eat them if nothing else until they fully recover. Just my experience with them.

Your TDS is quite low for raising juvies, try just aging your tap water with the Prime or equivalent product in a storage unit, juvies do not need RO water, that is unless there is something really wrong with your tap water. You can adjust this slowly over several days time, you don't want to change anything quickly.

[joanr]

Sorry, I thought you were running your tap through an RO unit. Wow, that is some soft tap water! I don't know exactly what you should do with that except to add some minerals back to it. You'll have to wait for the water expert's advise on that. I use Discus Trace by Seachem to add some calcium and other minerals to the water but mine is never below 250 TDS unless I filter through RO unit for breeding tank, which I haven't used for years now. As mentioned before the key is having stable water with little or no PH swings so if you can keep the PH steady in your water then you might not need to do much more with it for now at least. I would attempt to steady it out at 200 TDS over a period of time and see if that helps them any.

[Chad Hughes]

Chad,

my tds out of the tap is 027. I run my water through a kold ster il unit,

I add Kent ro right to get at higher reading. What should my tds be? 150?

Should I be doing something else?

Well,

You are one of those interesting cases. Your water is super soft with a low pH. I know we haven't asked yet, but are you noticing pH swings? I'm thinking that the KH of your water is extremely low and the pH could sing. Bringing the TDS with the additives is OK in your situation. You've got to do something to get your water harder and RO right is a good one.

So, here's the deal. Even with your TDS elevated to 110 ppm, your KH could still be less than 3. That can cause a pH swing and juvies are sensitive to that. Easy fix though. You have two choices. You could add baking soda or crushed coral to your aging barrel to raise the KH or you could add calcium carbonate (lime stone) to raise both the GH and KH. I would recommend the latter. It's important for your juvenile fish to have minearls in the water.

Other than that, your new changes look pretty good. Try and cover the entire bottom of the tank. You'd be surprised how sensitive the fish are to their tank and the suroundings outside the tank. This is why most, including myself cover 3 of the 4 viewing sides of the tank plus the entire bottom. This gives the fish a sense of security and shields them from outside influences such as movement in the room and stray light, colors, whatever. Like I said, they're sensitive little suckers! Once you make changes, give them a few days. You'll likely se improvement.

You should become a breeder. Your water appears to be fantastic for that! My water is nearly 500 ppm TDS with a pH over 8. Needless to say I go through a lot of RO filters. :D

Hope that helps!

[mugzy213]

Thanks Chad!

Where can I buy limestone? Also doesn't Kents ro right raise both gh and kh? So When I get the lime stone do I add that and ro right as well? What should my ideal tds be for breedig tanks and grow outs

Ph out of the tap is 6.8 ish
now in thanks 6.5 ish

I just started breeding painted two 20 gals and painted them like you said:)

I am having trouble raising them tho. I have reallly tried! Just for some reason something is not clicking:)


Well,

You are one of those interesting cases. Your water is super soft with a low pH. I know we haven't asked yet, but are you noticing pH swings? I'm thinking that the KH of your water is extremely low and the pH could sing. Bringing the TDS with the additives is OK in your situation. You've got to do something to get your water harder and RO right is a good one.

So, here's the deal. Even with your TDS elevated to 110 ppm, your KH could still be less than 3. That can cause a pH swing and juvies are sensitive to that. Easy fix though. You have two choices. You could add baking soda or crushed coral to your aging barrel to raise the KH or you could add calcium carbonate (lime stone) to raise both the GH and KH. I would recommend the latter. It's important for your juvenile fish to have minearls in the water.

Other than that, your new changes look pretty good. Try and cover the entire bottom of the tank. You'd be surprised how sensitive the fish are to their tank and the suroundings outside the tank. This is why most, including myself cover 3 of the 4 viewing sides of the tank plus the entire bottom. This gives the fish a sense of security and shields them from outside influences such as movement in the room and stray light, colors, whatever. Like I said, they're sensitive little suckers! Once you make changes, give them a few days. You'll likely se improvement.

You should become a breeder. Your water appears to be fantastic for that! My water is nearly 500 ppm TDS with a pH over 8. Needless to say I go through a lot of RO filters. :D

Hope that helps!

[Chad Hughes]

Thanks Chad!

Where can I buy limestone? Also doesn't Kents ro right raise both gh and kh? So When I get the lime stone do I add that and ro right as well? What should my ideal tds be for breedig tanks and grow outs

Ph out of the tap is 6.8 ish
now in thanks 6.5 ish

I just started breeding painted two 20 gals and painted them like you said:)

I am having trouble raising them tho. I have reallly tried! Just for some reason something is not clicking:)

I'd say you should be able to pick up some crushed limetone at a quarry or place that sells gravel. They usually have all types of gravel and crushed stone. You are correct, the RO right does raise both. The limestone keeps you from having to add something to your aging barrel every time. Either will work though.

Your pH is slipping once it's in the tank. I suspect that the low KH is causing the pH to drop. Without frequent water changes, your pH could crash.

Typical target breeding water is about 50 ppm TDS. Allow the Ph to fall where it may. You need to have at least trace KH to keep pH stable. I like the number 3 but sometimes I dip in to 2. This will affect your pH a bit. Like others have said, worry about pH stability rather than target pH. My breeding tanks hover around 80 ppm TDS with a pH of about 6.5.

What kinds of problems are you having with your pairs?

[mugzy213]

I'm not having problems with my pairs just fry and juvies. Having trouble growing them out to the time lines posted. and keeping them happy and healthy.

Ok just so I'm clear if I get limestone I should stop using ro right? And when us say 3. Are you referring to a kh and gh test kit? If so I probably need to one:)

Thanks again,

Hal


I'd say you should be able to pick up some crushed limetone at a quarry or place that sells gravel. They usually have all types of gravel and crushed stone. You are correct, the RO right does raise both. The limestone keeps you from having to add something to your aging barrel every time. Either will work though.

Your pH is slipping once it's in the tank. I suspect that the low KH is causing the pH to drop. Without frequent water changes, your pH could crash.

Typical target breeding water is about 50 ppm TDS. Allow the Ph to fall where it may. You need to have at least trace KH to keep pH stable. I like the number 3 but sometimes I dip in to 2. This will affect your pH a bit. Like others have said, worry about pH stability rather than target pH. My breeding tanks hover around 80 ppm TDS with a pH of about 6.5.

What kinds of problems are you having with your pairs?

[Chad Hughes]

I'm not having problems with my pairs just fry and juvies. Having trouble growing them out to the time lines posted. and keeping them happy and healthy.

Ok just so I'm clear if I get limestone I should stop using ro right? And when us say 3. Are you referring to a kh and gh test kit? If so I probably need to one:)

Thanks again,

Hal

The fry growout issue likely stems from your water being so low in minerals.

If you get limestone, you'll have to play with the quantities required to get your water where you want it. This will also rely on time. Once the limestone is in the tank and you age it for 24 hours, you'll have a certain degree of KH and GH present. The longer the water stays in contact with the lime stone, the higher those numbers will climb. If you have a pretty consistent schedule of water changes, your parameters should stay constant. If you know you'll use that water every 24 hours, then adjust the quantity of limestone to get the readings you want. If you use the water every 48 hours, you may be able to get by with less stone. See where I'm going with that? Les time, more stone. More time, less stone.

Yes, you can stop using the RO right after you introduce the limestone.

When I say 3, that's for the KH test. If you are using titration tests (liquid drops) then three drops should show a color change. With the KH around 3, your pH swings will go away. GH can be much higher. The highest I have ever tested was in the 20s. I'd be wiling to bet that if you get some limestone in your aging barrel, all of your fry growout issues will improve.

In your case with your water being so low in GH and KH, I would have both test kits on hand. You'll typically use these alot while determining what it will take to get your water right. Once it's consistent, then you'll only need to test every now and then to ensure there haven't been any changes.

Hope that helps!

[mugzy213]

Thanks Chad:)

is this stuff ok? At least it's cheaper then ro right

I do have a couple question tho.

If ro right raises both kg and gh doesn't limestone do the same thing?

When you say little amour for a couple day and alot for 1 day. Are you referring to the amount of limestone I'm putting in the storage barrels?

The limestone is a powder and it dizzsolves right? How much would you recommond?

Right now I used a teaspoon of ro right to eachone of my storage barrels?


Sorry to keep bugging you!

I appreicate it big time!

[Chad Hughes]

Thanks Chad:)

is this stuff ok? At least it's cheaper then ro right

The goal in using the limestone is to make it easier on you and possibly cheaper. You can put limestone in your storage tank and forget about it for some time.


I do have a couple question tho.

If ro right raises both kg and gh doesn't limestone do the same thing?

Limestone will raise both th GH and KH.

When you say little amour for a couple day and alot for 1 day. Are you referring to the amount of limestone I'm putting in the storage barrels?

You are correct.

The limestone is a powder and it dizzsolves right? How much would you recommond?

The limestone is in the form of gravel or stones. It will dissolve over time.

Right now I used a teaspoon of ro right to eachone of my storage barrels?


Sorry to keep bugging you!

I appreicate it big time!

Hope that helps!

[mugzy213]

Ok so If I get it in the gravel form and put it in the storage barrels it probably going to sit at the bottom for while and I'll add to every now and again?

I was assuming i'd get it as a powder form and add it the the barrels after everywater change. Like ro right.

I meant to post this link of the powder form in my last post. Does this work?

http://wardsci.com/product.asp?pn=IG0015130&sid=google&eid=cpc&cm_mmc=google-_-cpc-_-ward-_-CalciumCarbonate&WT.term=calcium+carbonate&WT.campaign=193&WT.source=google&WT.medium=cpc&WT.content=640094&cshift_ck=1945184291cs640094&WT.srch=1

thanks again.