Disease outbreak!

[glennske]

Hi all,

Need a bit of advice. Currently on holidays in Victoria, not due back till Wednesday. I've had a call from my brother in Sydney to say that a dozen rummy nose tetras and a couple cardinals have died overnight. I'm really concerned about my two malboro discus which are in this tank as well with the remaining cardinals.

I've had him take a water sample to our local aquarium. Water tested ok, PH 6.5, Ammonia 0, Nitrites 0, Nitrates 0, Phosphate 0 - 0.25. Temp 29deg. The aquarium is a planted tank, digitally ph controlled, and UV sterilizier attached. The LFS said my water conditions are perfect.

I've had the cardinals and rummy nose in this tank for a few months now. The discus are only a couple weeks old. The only thing I can link this disease outbreak is to the fact that I started feeding live food - blackworms - about four days ago. I'm thinking there might be some water born bacterial/parasite disease in the tank now.

I've got him to perform an emergency water change today.

I'm not sure what's going on. How should I treat the tank?

Thanks in advance.

[ILLUSN]

if it is a paracite of some kind from the blackworms try worm rid or flagyl, keep up the temp and the water changes, try to mix the drugs with food and have the fish eat it.

[glennske]

Thanks ILLUSN. I'm taking a stab, and thinking it is some kind of parasite infection. All the fish looked perfectly healthy before I left - no pshyical signs were obvious, even my discus were becoming less shy.

The rummy nose were the main ones eating the live food and all died over night. Seems like too much of a coincidence to me?

[Merrilyn]

When you were feeding the worms to the fish, did you notice if they were a dark, red brown colour, and still quite active, or had they begun to turn grey.

Dead worms begin to rot and become toxic very quickly. That could account for the deaths.

There is always a danger feeding live worms. I much prefer to feed my fish on beefheart, frozen bloodworms and good quality flake food.

I know discus love live blackworms, but it's really not worth the risk.

I hope you find your discus are well and happy when you return home.

[glennske]

Hi Merrilyn,

Thanks for your input. I've been doing some further reading on live food (blackworms), and I must admit, the conditions I had them in were probably not ideal. People seem to change their jar water on a daily basis. I was changing it every few days as advised by the LFS. I did think it looked a little dirty.

I'm back on Wednesday, and being away has made it a lot harder to control the situation. I believe we are doing a five day treatment with Sterazin at the moment. Hopefully the remaining ones will hang in there.

This has scared me off live food for life. You live and learn.