Thin discus with holes in the head

[waterflash]

Hi all, your help with this would be appreciated. I have a discus with holes in its head and has gone off food for about 2 weeks. I have treated it with metro with no success. Did not see cotton wool stage of hole in the head as it normally presents. Could it be anything else? Was going to try a dose of formalin/blue and see if there are any improvements, so would appreciate the dose rate and any other suggestions you may have.

Cheers

Rob

[Merrilyn]

What rate of metro did you use Rob, and has it made any improvement to his appetite?

It's thought that vitamins in the water will help with healing hole in the head. Hopefully he will begin eating, and you can add vitamins to the food, but putting it in the water has shown some success.

Metro is the right drug to use. You may need to do a second course at a slightly higher rate if there hasn't been any improvement so far.

Clean water, good food with added vitamins and warmth is what's needed now.

Good luck.

[Bill T]

I have some Octozin, which I'm told is basically metro anyway.
Cured my fish after one application - easy to use & calculate doseage. I still have heaps left over & am happy to share.

[Discus_Noob]

What tankmates are in the tank???

Angelfish and Corys i hear spread that disease.

[samir]

nobody spreads the disease, its always there. it crops up due to neglect. Metro brings numbers down enough for the fish's immune system to take over.
if metro is not working then the only way to get it eating again is to keep it under a ph of 5.5, with very clean water, and add sera fishtamins.

you have probably got a strain resistant to metro if the normal dose is not working I doubt octozin will do much though there's no harm in trying. For Octozin to work ,put your fish in a clean, low ph hospital tank and keep adding the Octozin everyday, don't change water, don't leave any waste food in the tank and use lids or the fish may jump.

if you want to try metro instead of Octozin, raise temp to 32, drop ph to anywhere between 4-5.5, lower is better and dose at 500mg/40 litres every 6 hours for at least 3 days. don't change water just add metro and don't worry about over dosing. I've used up to 1000mg/10 litres on culls with no problems.