Help Discus problems

[Sloryde]

I have a 47 Gallon bow0front tank i have had discus in for several months now i do weekly water changes water chem looks good lately my big discus has been dark in color and wont eat he also does not run with the group anymore it has been going on for at least a week now Any body have any ideas??????

Cory

[Merrilyn]

Need a bit more info than that Cory.

Can you provide pictures.

The acutal water parameters of your tank are important too. You need to test for ammonia, nitrite, nitrate and pH at least, and also the temperature.

How much water are you changing each week, and also what is the diet of the fish?

[Sloryde]

Thanks for your help the water parameters are all perfect No ammonia nitrite or nitrate water ph 6.6 temp 86F weekly 15 gallon water changes. Diet includes Hikari Blood worms, Spirulina brine shrimp,Wattley discus formula,Variety of flake and granules and some mysis shrimp and occasionally live black worm as a treat. When i purchased these discuss i was carefull to which ones I chose. The breeder of these is reputable. They got along for months and all of the sudden the biggest one is hiding wont eat food very dark in color no noticable slime or white poo. Tank mates include 5 cardinals 5 rummys 2 small cory cats some amazon swords. Any additional information would help thanks Marrilyn

Cory

[Merrilyn]

Sounds like you're doing everything right Cory. The only thing I don't like is the occasional feeding of live blackworm.

They are thought to carry gill and body flukes.

I think the first thing I'd do is to do a large water change, around 50%, increase the temperature by a couple of degrees and wait and see what happens.

Very often a fish will recover from whatever problem it has, with just more frequent water changes and increased temperature. It just gives the fishes own immune system a chance to overcome whatever is causing problems.

As you've been feeding live blackworms, I'd also be inclined to worm all your fish with a good gill fluke and tape worm medication containing praziquantal.

[discus lover01]

the feeding of live worm i find that if you do the water changes and treatments for fluke gill and body then it's no problem about feeding and it's a good food to spur on breeding.
It sounds like the fish may have hexamite if it's sitting in corner gone dark nose pointing down a bit of an angle look for the sign of white poo or i would be doing a treatment with metronidazole even if he is put into a medication tank or if you have to treat the whole tank on the forum there is dose rates for this but the best result is getting it mixed into the food and then the discus eats the food and gets the antibiotic into the gut.
But if not eating u need to do water treatment.
Increase temp to 32 degrees as well