Two, white, oblong-ish shaped protrusions (pictures included).

[Herbicidal]

Last night while feeding the fish I noticed two, white, oblong protrusions on this Discus. I have never seen anything like this before. They look almost like whiteheads. At the moment, "they" don't appear to be causing the fish any distress. The Discus is eating like crazy and appears to be fine otherwise.

No new fish have been added to the aquarium in the last 45 days. Sorry for the slightly blurry pictures, the darn fish wouldn't hold still! Any thoughts on what this may be?

pH: 6.2
Temp: 84
Ammonia: 0
Nitrites: 0
Nitrates: ~15 ppm
Food: only frozen/flake/pellets. No live food since day one.


http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/members/herbicidal-albums-discus-two-white-oblong-protrusions-picture5876-two-white-oblong-protrusions.jpg

http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/members/herbicidal-albums-discus-two-white-oblong-protrusions-picture5875-two-white-oblong-protrusions.jpg

http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/members/herbicidal-albums-discus-two-white-oblong-protrusions-picture5874-two-white-oblong-protrusions.jpg

http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/members/herbicidal-albums-discus-two-white-oblong-protrusions-picture5873-two-white-oblong-protrusions.jpg

http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/members/herbicidal-albums-discus-two-white-oblong-protrusions-picture5872-two-white-oblong-protrusions.jpg

[roundfishross]

I believe thats just fungal of some sort. I have seen this before and pp will knock it out usually in one dose. this typically happens when the water is not clean enough. ime. for what its worth it seems as though this will happen to the red fish first when the tank gets dirty. what strain is this guy?

[Eddie]

I believe thats just fungal of some sort. I have seen this before and pp will knock it out usually in one dose. this typically happens when the water is not clean enough. ime. for what its worth it seems as though this will happen to the red fish first when the tank gets dirty. what strain is this guy?


I agree, also from the pictures, it appears that the fish is a bit frosty looking. The slime coat is grayish or white. If you can't find PP or you are uncomfortable using it, you can go with Quick Cure (Formalin & Malachite Green). Definitely look at your water parameters and ensure they are in check.

Eddie

[YSS]

I have had that happen to a few discus before. May be water was my problem too. For me, they always went away in a few days without doing anything about it.

[roundfishross]

I have had that happen to a few discus before. May be water was my problem too. For me, they always went away in a few days without doing anything about it.

plus 1 with clean water:)

[Herbicidal]

Thanks everyone for your replies! Tonight they have diminished by about 25% in my estimation. The pictures make them look a little fuzzy, but in reality they are quite defined and look almost 'hard'. Like 1/2 of a grain of cooked rice but a little wider at the base and tapering slightly toward the tip. I do 60 gallon (approx 45%) water changes each week and the canister filters were due for a cleaning. I did the XP4 last night and I'll wait a couple of more days, then clean the XP3. I also added some API Stress Coat+ last night.

Roundfishross - I bought him from a LFS, I think a Pigeon Blood.

Eddie - good eyes, yes I didn't mention it in my intial post but you're right on the slime coat. It looks just a little bit 'off'. I took a long hard look at the rest of the flock and everyone else looks fine. I'll step up my water changes for a couple of weeks just to be sure. Since I have a planted tank of 155 gallons, would you suggest I capture him and move him to my 20 gallon QT? Or just keep a close eye on him and the rest and leave him in there? I'm just about to pull the current inhabitants out of quarantine to place in other tanks so the timing is good. That would make sense cost-wise and I certainly don't want to disrupt them, plus I have a couple of Nerite snails and a few scale-less fish too in the 155.

[roundfishross]

I have a group of golden based reds one of wich look almost identical to this fish and they are the ones for me that do this same thing if I get a little slack on cleaning. I have been told they carry pigeon gene as well
http://i840.photobucket.com/albums/zz326/roundfishross/bf82ca36.jpg

[flyman767]

I have a few that get this as well. I'm not sure what causes them..I do a 50% w/c every 3 days with full wipe downs and they still periodically appear on a few of my guys. Usually the red pigeon first. I always test the water perimeters when I see these and I find no issues with the water quality. Usually the spots only last a day or two and disappear.

[Herbicidal]

To bring this full circle, the 'protrusions' have since disappeared, no marks left behind and the Discus is doing fine. The slime coat is still a bit 'off', but looking better. I've been fighting low pH and this may be a contributing factor.

[MostlyDiscus]

I really like reds, nice fish. WCs are the key. What is your ph at? Nice group of reds roundfishross, are they from the same parents? Ed

[Herbicidal]

Hi MostlyDiscus - the pH dropped down to a low of 5.4 about a week and a half ago. I started more frequent water changes but could not get the pH to stay in the 6's. Tap water is 8.2 - 8.5, after aging overnight in two trash cans with heaters and airstones, it drops to ~ 7.2. This past weekend, I did two water changes (120 gallons total) and brought it back up to a whopping 5.8! Yesterday I went to a LFS and picked up 4 lbs of medium crushed coral. Pulled the charcoal out of one of the baskets in my Rena XP4 and replaced it with about 2 lbs of rinsed crushed coral. I checked the pH again this morning, about 14 hours after making the changes above, and the pH has risen up to 6.7. Just about where I want it to be, perhaps a little high. I'll check the pH again tonight. If it is still climbing, I'll pull out about a pound of the crushed coral and see how it does.

[lpiasente]

I used to have problems and I added 1/ cup crushed shell to 1 cansiter and it has stayes stable ever since

[Eddie]

Seachem Reef Builder! ;)

[MostlyDiscus]

Strange how your ph drops that quickly. How hard is the water comming out of your tap? Be careful with you water storage cans, some plastics can leach. Make sure your heater does not sit on the plastic. I did use trash cans for water storage back in '89. I have a picture of a trashcan next to a 125 with 8 turqs I had purchased from Jack Wattley. I breed discus in a PH range between 5 and 6. Sometimes my system will bottom out at 4.2. If you dont have other animals in the tank or plants that can't handle low ph then I would be excited to get your ph. Sometimes folks freak out and bounce the ph around thinking its too low or too high. The main thing is to keep your ph in a range. Ed

[Herbicidal]

Strange how your ph drops that quickly. How hard is the water comming out of your tap? Be careful with you water storage cans, some plastics can leach. Make sure your heater does not sit on the plastic. I did use trash cans for water storage back in '89. I have a picture of a trashcan next to a 125 with 8 turqs I had purchased from Jack Wattley. I breed discus in a PH range between 5 and 6. Sometimes my system will bottom out at 4.2. If you dont have other animals in the tank or plants that can't handle low ph then I would be excited to get your ph. Sometimes folks freak out and bounce the ph around thinking its too low or too high. The main thing is to keep your ph in a range. EdYeah, that big drop has me perplexed! Both gh and kh give me a reading of approximately 5 degrees or 89 ppm. These numbers have been consistent since day one, back in August of last year. I did a search on the internet and found a water data sheet from 2009 (http://www.amwater.com/files/ca_3110150_ccr.pdf for my city (I'm considered to be in the West Placer portion of Roseville) and it shows total hardness of 34 ppm on average and a pH of 7.9. My pH tap water is typically in the mid 8's and drops to the mid 7's after aeration overnight. I agree that pH stability is very important, I was quite concerned with the water becoming more and more acidic and potentially causing damage to the inhabitants. Typically the pH in the aquarium was in the low 7's so seeing it head into the 5's was rather disconcerting!

I only keep the water in the trash cans long enough to aerate and 'age' it. Typically less than 24 hours. Then the cans dry out in-between times. Plus I would like to have the tank pH reasonably close to the tap pH after aging it. Not a spread of 3 plus points! The heaters suction to the side using the supplied suction cups.

By the way, last night the pH was 6.8, this morning it was 7.0. It appears to be leveling out. I'll continue to test twice a day leaving everything as-is for the moment.

[MostlyDiscus]

If I remeber right the ph going up is no big deal or at least thats been my exp with ph. If I put too much acid solution in the water the fish just about jump out of the tank. ATM my ph is 5.6. Breeders fry and adults love it. Just may be my opinion but I think that the lower the ph the less the infection and pathogen pressure. Fish are healthy? Ed Most

[Herbicidal]

This morning the pH is coming in at 7.27 @ 84 degrees. Just about peaked out. All the fish appear healthy and eat like pigs at feeding time. The original fish in the pictures is completely clean of those spots. However, the slime coat still has a little gray tinge showing here and there. I'm not quite sure what that means. Originally I thought it was because the pH was dropping like a stone and the acidity was the cause. However, none of the other fish show the gray tinge. Otherwise everything seems to be OK.