suspected fin rot on my discus, need help from the experts here

[evilobster]

DISEASE QUESTIONNAIRE


good day all, as the topic states i think my discus has fin rot... info below:

Problem

1. Please explain the problems with your fish/when and how they started
i've had my discus for about six months, i'm new to keeping discus so theres a lot i still need to learn about them however i've been in and out of the aquatic hobby since i was a little kid. anyway, for the past 2-3 weeks some of my discus started becoming more shy and darkened in color. i figured that the fish was getting stressed so i ran tests on my water, everything was within normal limits except my phospates which were at 2 ppm. many waterchanges later i got back to that pristine water quality but the fish that were stressed seemed to still stay stressed. becoming darker and darker and more often than not hiding behind the plants. they also stopped coming up to greet me. i currelntly have a 135 gallon tank with 7 discus ranging from 2 in to 4 in (yes, i know i didn't do my research, you're not supposed to mix sizes) yesterday i isolated the fish that were described above to a hospital tank (20 gallon bb with a sponge filter)




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)

turning dark
clamped fins
rotting fins
poor appetite
discus doesn't come up to greet me or look for food :(




3. What medications/ treatments that you have already tried and results. Include dosages and duration of treatment.
only thing i have tried so far is to keep the water in optimal conditions




Tank/Water

4. Tank size and age, number and size of fish
135 planted, 6 months, 7 discus 2-4 in


5. Water change regime/ how long has tank been running/ bare bottom or gravel/ do you age your water?
20 gallons every day, gravel vac/poop scoop every day. i don't age my water but i do treat it with seachem prime
i'm unable to age my water due to the limited space in my apartment


6 Parameters and water source;

this is for my 135 gallon tank
- temp 83-85 degrees (variance of 2 degress pretty much only happens during water change as i cannot 100 % accurately match the temp of the water i'm putting in)

- ph 7.4 (which is the normal ph of our tap water, i do not alter ph so my tank's ph has been constant)

- ammonia reading 0

- nitrite reading 0

- nitrate reading 0-- i have plants so i was told they tend to absorb nitrate, i am aware that a well cycled tank has about 5 ppm nitrate

- well water-- no

- municipal water yes

i did not have a ready hospital tank so i used 1/2 water from the above tank to set up my 20 gallon hospital tank

ph - 7.4

ammonia of 0.25- yes, i just did a 60% water change

nitrite-0

nitrate-0

7. Any new fish/plants added recently

none added recently


i know i'm a new member here but most of what i know about discus came from this forum, i hope you guys will be able to help me. i'll post a pic up tomorrow as i'm having difficulty with transferring pics right now and i have to do a wc before work. TIA for your help.

[judy]

Can you possibly get a pic up? you need to post ten times to post an image, but it would help. Do the fins looked frayed? Is there whitish thick film on the edges? I'm thinking a round of General Cure might be in order...

[evilobster]

ah, then you guys will have to excuse the next 8 posts that will have nothing useful but i need to build up that post count to get the picture up

[evilobster]

the fins actually look intact but the edges are dark in color with a whitish outline if that makes sense. and on the bottom fin below the tail there seems to be an area that has turned grey/white. semi-circle in shape

[evilobster]

also the fish turned a patchy dark/light color... actually looking at the picture that i took the edges of the tail look frayed

[evilobster]

i just realized i have both metronidazole and prazipro, which if i understand correctly are the two main ingredients in general cure. would it be ok to dose with both instead of buying completely new medication?

[Orange Crush]

I'm thinking a round of General Cure might be in order...
I am curious as to why you recommend a med for parasites, I thought fin rot was bacterial?
So what is causing the white thick film on the OP's fish?
(sorry, I am tryin to be respectful of evilobster's thread but I really do not know much of anything about meds/diseases and I am trying to learn before I get in these situations. hopefully the answers to my questions will be helpful for evilobster as well).

I love the name evilobster btw. How did you come up with it? Did you have a naughty lobster in your tank?

[evilobster]

i've been reading up a lot from this forum about diseases and cures, by far everything i've learned has kept me from getting sick discus, that is until this issue came up.

orange crush-- its a pet name between myself and my fiancee... i guess there was an episode of friends where they refer to a monogamous couple as lobsters since supposedly lobsters have only one mate for life. thats how we came up with the lobster part. and i just always considered myself a bit devious and evil... so i came up with the name evilobster. lol.

[evilobster]

if i understand correctly i think the theory is that the fin rot is a secondary infection. ie something is causing the fish to be stressed so if we treat the underlying problem the fin rot should begin to resolve itself...? did i get that right?

[lipadj46]

The issue is the tank itself. Normally I would say do 95% water changes and they will most likely snap out of it but that may be difficult with such a large tank. If that does not work then metro is next.

[Skip]

you are only doing 15% water change out of the 135..

you need to up it big time.. that is your first step!

[Orange Crush]

if i understand correctly i think the theory is that the fin rot is a secondary infection. ie something is causing the fish to be stressed so if we treat the underlying problem the fin rot should begin to resolve itself...? did i get that right?
That makes sense to me but what parasite is causing the thick white film?

[Chicago Discus]

I would start off by doing a large water change its probably something in your substrate it happens with planted tanks but without a photo or video its hard to tell. At this point I would do a large water change and keep that up for a few days then you can go back to doing smaller but higher percentage water changes then your doing. Its amazing what clean water can accomplish............Josie

[strawberryblonde]

I would start off by doing a large water change its probably something in your substrate it happens with planted tanks but without a photo or video its hard to tell. At this point I would do a large water change and keep that up for a few days then you can go back to doing smaller but higher percentage water changes then your doing. Its amazing what clean water can accomplish............Josie

+1

In addition, you said that 50% of the water in your hospital tank is water from the 135g. By using that water you transferred over whatever contaminants might be causing the problem. Sooooo, now it's time to do a 100% water change on the hospital tank.

The other thing I'm not clear on is how many fish you have in the hospital tank and what sizes they are. For instance, if you put a couple of 2" discus in the tank, then the size of the tank is fine, and you can just do a 90% water change each day in order to keep the ammonia and nitrites in check. But if you put, let's say, 4 4" discus plus 3 2" discus in a 20 gallon you will need to do 2 of those water changes each day in order to control the water parameters.

-On a side note, I've never found that using tank water to fill another tank does much for the bio-media in the new tank. The helpful bacteria is found in the filters, some on the sides of the tank and, if you use substrate, it will be in the sand/gravel. But the sand/gravel is usually a large part of the problem when discus start having issues, so using that to seed a new tank just compounds the problem.

--In my case, I just clean the new tank well with fresh water and a good scrubbing with a scrubbie pad, then fill 'er up with 100% fresh water and plop the fish in. After that I do massive water changes once or twice a day (depending on how stocked the tank is) in order to keep ammonia and nitrites down.

Back to the main subject. =)

For your 135g tank, since you have substrate and plants, you'll need to up the daily water changes and increase the vacuuming schedule permanently. I have a 115g with 9 LARGE discus plus friends, 3 plants in pots and a sand substrate. I currently do 65-75% water changes every day or every other day depending on whether or not I feed beefheart that day. (beefheart is horridly foul when it sits uneaten in a tank)

For your tank, since your fish are sub-adults and juvies, I'd very much recommend doing at least a 50% water change every single day. Juvies are very sensitive to water quality, so though your tests may look fine to you, they may not be fine for your discus. Here's hoping you use the actually liquid/test tube tests and not the test strips since those are notoriously unreliable.

I know a 50% water change in a large tank is a pain in the butt, but it's what you have to do if you want to keep discus healthy and growing well.

For your hospital tank, just keep doing the massive water changes and post a pic as soon as you can so that the experts here can make a good diagnosis. Water changes alone often solve the problem, but it can take up to a week to see results.

[evilobster]

72791

more pictures to come tomorrow morning, i'm gonna be late for work >.<

but i will indeed do larger water changes, probably to the tone of 60-80 gallons per day, i deep gravel vac every day because i know the detritus in the gravel will foul the water.

also my hospital tank just has one 2 in juvie discus and my 4 in young adult up in the picture that's having the problem. i put the juvie in there because he was showing the same symptoms as the young adult, poor appetite, darkened color, increased shyness.

i've done 3 water changes of 50 percent each time since i moved my guys into the hospital tank the day before yesterday. do you guys think that salt will help?

behaviour has changed today, they're not as shy and i see them picking at the food i drop in there. i'll do a 100 percent change tomorrow morning when i get off work. thank you guys again for the replies, your advice really goes a long way to noobs like myself

[strawberryblonde]

Whew, happy to hear that there are only 2 fish in the hosp. tank. That makes keeping up with the water quality much easier. =)

If they're not as shy today and are picking at food then the water changes are helping. If it was me I'd just keep doing the huge wc's every day and watch for signs of improvement. No salt for now. It does take awhile for them to pick up again and start to thrive. Hopefully by the time they've gotten their sea-fins under them again the 135's water will be up to snuff too and they'll be back to swimming around with their buddies.

[evilobster]

728317283272833

hello all, i'm posting an update after 5 days of water changes. my hospital tank fish seem marginally better... pictures above. the big fish still has the fin rot (see picture). i have been changing 15 gallons of the 20 gallon tank every day. the fish seem to like it, but their appetite hasn't come back yet (how long are we talking about when you guys say that they'll take a while to get back to normal???) they seem to be moving around much more so than they were before, but still shy when i come up to the tank. i've turned the light off to minimize the stress level and i've left them alone for the most part except for feedings and water changes.

also while feeding them i noticed this on the bottom of my tank, could this be the mucus-y stool that everyone keeps talking about when discus have intestinal flagellates?? i have been feeding them pellets for the past five days so it can't be blood worm casings....72830
should i begin treatment with metro?


as for my 135 gallon, i've been doing 80 gallons per day of water changes. my other 4 in blue discus there is still shy in comparison to the other fish... he seems to only come out after the water changes, i decided to test for any anomalies in the water parameters and so far have found none. values continue to be stable. any advice guys? i'd like to hear what you have to say for both my 135 and my hospital tank... TIA again

[evilobster]

so i woke up this morning and looked at my fish and his fin rot looks worse today... it's really weird because he's more active, a bit pale but his fin rot is worsening... is there any medication i need to start on him?

[evilobster]

Checked my discus today, his fins continue to deteriorate despite aggressive large water changes. Any advice is welcome. Stress coat is beginning to sluff off. SOS guys...

The affected area of his fin as grown to twice the original size

[TURQ64]

I gotta run, but how about a standard round of antibiotics for this. Start with a 100% clean tank, use Furan 2 for at least a week...Change water 50% each day and redose...Then you should see improvement in the spread and their appetite

[evilobster]

final update: thanks turq, i went to look for the medication when i finally found it, i got home and my fish had died. :(

thanks again for all the help and time guys

[strawberryblonde]

So sorry to hear that he died. Just be sure to keep up the water quality on the 135 and watch closely for any signs that your other discus may have the same illness, ok?

Please keep us posted on how they're doing. Just stick a post in the General Discussion section so we don't lose track of you and your remaining fishes.