intestinal disease treatments never solving my issue

[Sec86]

Hello,

I'm starting to pull my hair as I can't work out what to do anymore. Hopefully, someone can give me some advice on what to use next.
I have 2 community tanks, one 250 L, nine 6 to 10 cm discus, and a 1200 L tank with around ten adults.
My larger tank is only four months old, and over the last couple of months, I've had an outbreak of some intestinal critter that I've been unable to address.
The smaller tank has been running for several years, and both are planted with substrate at about 29 degrees C.
My water change regime is 50 to 60 % water changes on both approximately every 4 days, unless the treatment protocol suggests otherwise.
The first sign of disease was on one of the largest fish stopping to eat plus showing a swollen abdomen with faster than normal breathing, also a short white tread hanging from anus.
As I had to battle with hexamita before I had enough waterlife octozine (dimetro) ready to go, and despite I was already feeding with food mixed with metroplex not long before these sinthoms, I thought I had to go ahead, as also another couple of fish were starting to show less interest in food.
After 3 days of treatment, I left the product in the water for about a week (not 9 days as product instructions), mainly because I also fed them a few times with beef heart and metro, and the water was getting a bit dirty.
After this treatment I seen some fish passing some larger white poop but no improvements on the sik fish.
I waited for another week or two and isolated in the hospital tank the few fish showing some ill behaviour.
The sicker started darting and sinking, and after a couple of days with metro and epson in water, died.
At the same time, I received another product I've ordered (Esha examita), which I used for a course,e then the other 3 fish improved significantly and went back to the main tank after a couple of weeks.
After being back in the display tank, they stopped eating again. I then decided to do a course of esha hexamita to the larger tank, after which I didn't see too many improvements.
After a couple of weeks, I received another product I wanted to try (kusury discus wormer), Flubendazole and after a week of the product I saw some improvement. cI hanged water and went on for another 2 weeks (3 in total).
Some of the fish have improved but some other stopped eating and had the withe tread hanging on anus now and have some swallen stomach.
I did give them a week of break with a bit of empson in water and then tried 2 cycles of lavamisazole at 1 ml x 7 L.
Not too much has improved since, now I'm in the middle of praziquantal to see if that helps.
My guess is some of the fish ad a bacterial infection in stomach and white poop isactually pus or something like that.
Infact one fish had gigantic white clear poop (looked like noodle) and after isolating in hospital tank kamicin helped to sort white poop but fish started eating for few days and stopped again, now is extremely skinny and doesen't look like is going to survive.
To make all of this more complicated, my smaller tank and younger fish also had some white tread from anus and a couple of fish hiding but after the hesha product and even more the 2 weeks of flubendazole they all are doing very well...
this is becoming frustrating and costly as a 1200l tank takes a lot of medications and everything is hard to source in Australia...

[LizStreithorst]

What a post! First off these fish have been through a ton of different meds. They need some time off in BB tanks with nothing but large WC every day (at least 50%) for at least a week. All those meds take a toll on the fish.

I believe that your main problem is hex that has not been properly treated. Esha hex doesn't contain the amount of pure metro that the fish need. You need to treat at 500mg per 10 gallons for 10 to 12 days. After that, it still may be a few days to start eating again.

I think the problem arose because the fish were in a planted tank with substrate along with inadequate WC. I know that a planted tank looks pretty but it is not the best environment for Discus. For best results a BB tank with a 30% WC daily or every other day is best.

I'm sure this wasn't what you hoped to hear. Brain is good with health problems, too, as is Al. Perhaps one of them will chime in.

[Sec86]

What a post! First off these fish have been through a ton of different meds. They need some time off in BB tanks with nothing but large WC every day (at least 50%) for at least a week. All those meds take a toll on the fish.

I believe that your main problem is hex that has not been properly treated. Esha hex doesn't contain the amount of pure metro that the fish need. You need to treat at 500mg per 10 gallons for 10 to 12 days. After that, it still may be a few days to start eating again.

I think the problem arose because the fish were in a planted tank with substrate along with inadequate WC. I know that a planted tank looks pretty but it is not the best environment for Discus. For best results a BB tank with a 30% WC daily or every other day is best.

I'm sure this wasn't what you hoped to hear. Brain is good with health problems, too, as is Al. Perhaps one of them will chime in.

I was aware that planted tank are more work as I had discus for a few years.
I managed to rise fish from juvenile to adult size successfully in a 250 l tank.
I had a few issues half way trough but after a few days of treatment with Metro in water they all came good, from there I just feed some metroplex every couple of months for few days just to keep it at bay.
This was working in my other tank and I assumed was going to be the same in the new setup.
After I moved the fish to the new tank afer a couple of months some fish stopped eating and that when the saga started...
I literally lost a fish in 1 week then another one a mon later, and today I got one on his way in the hospital tank.
Roughly all the fish died one month apart from each other..

[jeep]

This type of systemic issue can be very difficult to treat. To treat based upon common symptoms is a process of elimination and repetition and can be successful, but it's still a shotgun approach that's most people take. As much effort as you've put into this, I would suggest investing in an inexpensive microscope and see if you can examine the feces to see exactly what you're dealing with, then target with the exact med needed. And, whatever is going on, it'll be nearly impossible to treat in a planted tank with substrate.

I'd like to see a photo if you see the white string protruding again. This could be tapeworm, and could explain the bloating, but a photo would confirm. Another hard to irradicate yet common parasite is capillaria. Both can display the exact symptoms you're describing. Treating in a bare bottom tank is hard enough, but neither can be irradicated in a tank with substrate because the eggs are sticky and attach to every surface, then the cycle repeats. And, whether it's hex, worms or any other internal parasite, I like to raise the temp to 93 and add 4-5 TBS regular salt per 10g. This can help increase the metabolism and spur appetite, as well as speed up the life cycle and even kill the parasite and make meds more effective. Just be certain you're not dealing with an internal infection if you raise the temp...

[Sec86]

This type of systemic issue can be very difficult to treat. To treat based upon common symptoms is a process of elimination and repetition and can be successful, but it's still a shotgun approach that's most people take. As much effort as you've put into this, I would suggest investing in an inexpensive microscope and see if you can examine the feces to see exactly what you're dealing with, then target with the exact med needed. And, whatever is going on, it'll be nearly impossible to treat in a planted tank with substrate.

I'd like to see a photo if you see the white string protruding again. This could be tapeworm, and could explain the bloating, but a photo would confirm. Another hard to irradicate yet common parasite is capillaria. Both can display the exact symptoms you're describing. Treating in a bare bottom tank is hard enough, but neither can be irradicated in a tank with substrate because the eggs are sticky and attach to every surface, then the cycle repeats. And, whether it's hex, worms or any other internal parasite, I like to raise the temp to 93 and add 4-5 TBS regular salt per 10g. This can help increase the metabolism and spur appetite, as well as speed up the life cycle and even kill the parasite and make meds more effective. Just be certain you're not dealing with an internal infection if you raise the temp...

I do have acces to a microscope to be fair.
Try to collect the stringy feces might be a little challenging but I think worth a shot.

[jeep]

To make it even more of a challenge, you really want to try to collect it before it hits the bottom. Feces that has been on the bottom of the tank will pick up all kinds of harmless stuff that looks scary under magnification. Some of the critters that live in substrate can look terrifying!

I tried blowing up the photo's but they aren't sharp enough to really see. One photo looks like a tapeworm but another looks hexish. Tapeworm will look solid white in color and segmented. Hex will look semi transparent. Roundworms can produce hex looking feces but I think can be a little yellowish. Hex rarely causes swelling, but more of a thinning and wasting away appearance.

There are also other protozoa that produce similar symptoms as hex but are highly resistant to metro and other meds, and have become more common yet aren't properly diagnosed. Whenever traditional hex treatments fail, it's time to look at other options. This is where the microscope comes in handy...

[Sec86]

To make it even more of a challenge, you really want to try to collect it before it hits the bottom. Feces that has been on the bottom of the tank will pick up all kinds of harmless stuff that looks scary under magnification. Some of the critters that live in substrate can look terrifying!

I tried blowing up the photo's but they aren't sharp enough to really see. One photo looks like a tapeworm but another looks hexish. Tapeworm will look solid white in color and segmented. Hex will look semi transparent. Roundworms can produce hex looking feces but I think can be a little yellowish. Hex rarely causes swelling, but more of a thinning and wasting away appearance.

There are also other protozoa that produce similar symptoms as hex but are highly resistant to metro and other meds, and have become more common yet aren't properly diagnosed. Whenever traditional hex treatments fail, it's time to look at other options. This is where the microscope comes in handy...

Thanks for the advice, hopefully I'll get some dropping on the way to the bottom.

[Sec86]

To make it even more of a challenge, you really want to try to collect it before it hits the bottom. Feces that has been on the bottom of the tank will pick up all kinds of harmless stuff that looks scary under magnification. Some of the critters that live in substrate can look terrifying!

I tried blowing up the photo's but they aren't sharp enough to really see. One photo looks like a tapeworm but another looks hexish. Tapeworm will look solid white in color and segmented. Hex will look semi transparent. Roundworms can produce hex looking feces but I think can be a little yellowish. Hex rarely causes swelling, but more of a thinning and wasting away appearance.

There are also other protozoa that produce similar symptoms as hex but are highly resistant to metro and other meds, and have become more common yet aren't properly diagnosed. Whenever traditional hex treatments fail, it's time to look at other options. This is where the microscope comes in handy...

I couldn’t find out anything too obvious in feces, but definitely a couple of things that someone might be able to identify…
Apologies for bad picture but that's the best I could do...

[jeep]

I'm not the best at identifying microscopic images, but I'm not seeing much here. One of the oval shapes could possibly be capillaria but it's not too clear and I'm not seeing an infestation. What's the magnification?

See if you can take some more random images from different fish as time permits. Even though all of your fish may not be displaying symptoms, if one has it they'll all have it, which is true for all parasites. Some fish just may not have a strong enough immune system to keep them under control.

Here are a couple of examples of cap. The first is at 400x and the second is at 1000x
image.png
image.png

[Sec86]

I'm not the best at identifying microscopic images, but I'm not seeing much here. One of the oval shapes could possibly be capillaria but it's not too clear and I'm not seeing an infestation. What's the magnification?

See if you can take some more random images from different fish as time permits. Even though all of your fish may not be displaying symptoms, if one has it they'll all have it, which is true for all parasites. Some fish just may not have a strong enough immune system to keep them under control.

Here are a couple of examples of cap. The first is at 400x and the second is at 1000x
image.png
image.png

I’ve managed to get a sample from another fish…
nothing too obvious here too but I’m attaching the pictures anyway