Discus are sick!! How to cure Fin Rot and Slimy Coat!?

[discusbarlas]

Hello.. I am a bit new to discus.

My tank is 40 Gal with 6 baby discus and 6 baby angel fish.

My Water Parameter are:

PH = 6.5
KH = between 1-3dh
GH = 6dh
NO2 = 0
NO3 = 35
Temp = 30C

I want to reduce Nitrate in my tank. I am doing 50% water change every 2 days with RO water.

I have Ehem Classic Canester Filter + Overhead SUMP filter with Coral and Filter media + Gravel Filter which I use some time.

The main problem with my discus fish is that they are getting SLIMY COAT on them and are DARK and one of them have FIN ROT problem started.

I have Melafix and Tetra General Tonic. I cannot have Metro or other medicine which are mostly available in US, AUS.. as I live in United Arab Emirates.

Can someone please assist me urgently to cure this issue!?!? :(:(

[taksan]

Metro is available in the big Chinese run shop down near the beach.

[Merrilyn]

Welcome to the forum :P

When you say you have baby discus fish, can you tell me just what size they are?

I like to try the simple approach first, and as your fish have just been purchased, I'm inclined to think that it may be due to the stress of travelling, rather than any particular illness.

Have you seen the colour of their droppings. Is it normal brown or is it white. If it's brown, and the babies are still eating, then it's not too serious, and a dose of salt in the water should solve the problem.

Treat your fish by adding one heap teaspoon of rock salt or plain cooking salt per 40 litres of water (or ten gallons of water) and keep it at this level for 7 days. You should see some improvement in the slime coat of the babies, and some regrowth in the fins.

If it starts to look worse, or if your babies stop eating, please let us know straight away.

Your fish will be fine in that size tank while they are small, but as they grow, they will need a bigger tank, or you will need to cut down on the numbers in your tank.

Baby discus need lots of clean water, so keep doing those water changes every second day. It will also help to reduce your nitrate reading.

Whilst a nitrate reading of 35 is not dangerously high, try to bring it down to under 10 for optimum growth.

[discusbarlas]

Thanks Merrilyn for the reply.

Well I have purchased these discus babies a week ago and they all from around 2.5 inch in size. When I brought them they were all fine and seemed normal but the second day I see them sitting down on the gravel and turned black. As I have read from this forum that that happen due to stress of traveling and will be fine in some days, so i didnt worry. From that time they keep turning black but do move in the water in normal color and then turn black. I dont see any sort of swimming problem as they swim normal and not with their head facing up or down.

As you asked about the droppings.. well I cant tell you as they are not eating since I have brought them in my tank last week. They, most of the time hide behind the internal filter or sit on the gravel with dark color. Other fish like 6 baby angels are eating fine and have no issue.

So can I put the salt in the main tank with the dosage you have told me? Does salt have any side effects on discus in any case and will it make my water bad? I am sorry I dont have a MED tank right now.

I have included some snaps of the discus which i took last night before I did a 50% WC with RO. This morning their blackness was less than yesterday and they were swiming in/around the tank.

Also I heard that throwing some pieces of garlic in the tank make their immune systems to function more and they may start eating. Do you think this can help somehow?

Please give me any suggestion, to make my discus start eating, become happy and grow!?

[discusbarlas]

i did a 80% WC with RO water and then I checked the water parameters with SERA Quick Test.

The new Water Parameters are :

PH = 6.5
KH = 5d
GH = <3d
NO2 = 0
NO3 = 0 or 1
Temp = 30C

Do you think with this parameter my discus can return to life? I dont have much gravel so I took it out very gently and my tank is barebottom. I think I shoudlnt put gravel till my water get much stable.

So should I keep doing WC every 3 day up to 40% to keep the parameters stable!?

[discusbarlas]

Just a quick update:

I checked my discus this morning... and their pale color skin is 90% gone.... I mean the blue Discus was almost grey or black 2 days back now I could see its colors comming back to blue. They are swiming with their usual colors but 1 or 2 sometime change their color to black which I think they are stillrecovering!?!

I think the slime coat thingy has gone. cause I can see some white web kind of subsatance in the water floating. But the fish were having finrot so do you think that with this salt course their fins will return back. I havent used any medicine yet just using the soft way to retrieve them back to health Smile

So inshort I have 2 questions to you:

1. As they are having finrot on their tails and front fin (3 discus) will their fin grow back or recoever due to continuos WC and salt course.

2. They still not eating, which is making me worry as its beeing like 1.5 week now. any idea how to put them to eat?

[Merrilyn]

The fins will certainly grow back after finrot. Keeping the water very clean will assist the regrowth.

The major problem you have at the moment, is that they are not eating. Ten days is a very long time for young fish to go without food. The danger is that they just continue to refuse eating, and starve to death.

Try to tempt them with some live food. Live brine shrimp is good, or even live blackworms. Mosquito wrigglers are probably the best food if you can find some. Very few fish will ignore live food wriggling right under their nose.

[discusbarlas]

thanks for the reply...

yeh i am also worried about the eating problem...

I have tried frozen blood worms, TetraMin flakes, dry mini pearl shrimps but no progress.

Live food is not much available in place I live but i will surely search to extreme for my poor babies.....

any other recipe you have in mind apart from live food which can be easily available every where?

[discusbarlas]

Bad news today....

This afternoon... when I came back from work... I saw that my blue discus (shown above in the pic) has died. He seemed to be fine in the morning... :(

Also as I had 6 baby angels in the tank.. 2 of them died too... is it becuase I have been using salt for treatment.

I put 1 heap teaspoon of salt per 10 gallons according to my tank size. Does salt effect clown loaches and angel fish?!

[ILLUSN]

salt at that dose is harmless to fish

[discusbarlas]

what is the best remedy to keep the fish away from any future FIN ROTE?

Also to keep away the fishes from all kind of parasites and bacterias?

[fishgeek]

good quality water

in my opinion fin rot is asecondary or opportunistic bacterial infection of wounds caused by trauma or skin irritation with poor water chemistry

andrew

[discusbarlas]

Thanks fishgeek for the reply....


How do I know that my water is bacteria free?!!

are there any specific signs!?

[fishgeek]

you will never have bacteria free water ina fish tank...

bacteria are there , what i mean is that minimal levles and healthy fish achieve a balance whith no evident problems

when something stress's the fish and lowers the bodies ability to resist infection then the bacterial numbers take that opportunity to increase and cause disease
stressors maybe netting,bagging,changing water, changing diet,bullying by other fish, temporary chilling, etcetcetc

equally when the surface layers of the fish's slime and skin are damaged then some of the normal defence mechanism are removed and hence infection can occur more easily in these area's


simple tank maintainece will reduce bacterial levles
when removing sediment bacteria and virus's tend to accumulate with organic sediments and so vacumning and standard filter maintainece can help keep excess levels at bay
basic hygiene procedure's ie storing all nets and fish equipment, including hands in a simple aquarium safe disinfectant dip bucket between use's can reduce cotamination and is important for multiple tank keepers

i'm getting off track now
andrwe

[discusbarlas]

Thanks for a very information answer fishgeek... I will keep a track from now onwards.

I am doing Vaccuming every day with taking out 1 bucket full of water.

My tank is babe bottom. Is there anything which I could add to make them more comfortable. I have 2 big plastic plants and a small 2 kg rock with caves in it for my siamese Algeeater.

putting frozen bloodworms(BW) almost daily is good idea or bad? will they increase more parasites than flakes? is there anything which is more better than BWs which have less chances of parasites? I cannot have live food in the area where I live... as its banned (like brine shrimps, live Blackworms etc)

I feed them 2 times a day with morning BW and evening flakes.

[fishgeek]

My tank is babe bottom. I.

any chance of a photo :wink:

seriously thoug if the bottom of the tank reflects then that willmake the fish nervous
reduce the light, or turn it off, they feel more secure in the dark

something to hide under behind certainly increase's a scared fish's sense of comfort.. too much can make it hard to observe and clean a tank

regular maintainence ie hands in a tank may make the fish nervous aswell

if you feed and food is uneaten then you are feeding too much in each meal.. frequency of meals is something i will let the discus keepers advise you on.. i would do less with my fish though i have heard discus need to eat more regulalry

the frozen blood worm.. i am not much of a believer in all the net stories of it causeing disease
as with anything frozen if it has been defrosted in transit(to lfs, to home etc) and refrozen it has a chance of increased bacterial counts ..
depending on the health of the hosts GIT this may or maynot cause problems

certainly irradiation and then freezing when carried out correctly do reduce the numbers of pathogens in these foods, just as the heat treatment of commercial flakes pellets etc does

leaving food in the tank to decay, reduces oxygen levels, already an issue in hot water of discus , and encourage increased bacterial loads


andrew

[discusbarlas]

Ooop! My mistake about the BABE BOTTOM lolz :D

anyways thanks for the reply fishgeek...

When I feed Bloodworms or Flakes they almost eat all and dont leave anything on the bottom. The slight left over food gets eaten by my siamese alge eater which is 7 inch long.

Its just couple of poops in the tank which i see on the bottom lying. Do you think I should vaccume the tank for the poops every 2-3 days with WC up to 20%?

Also one of adult do bully the other adult discus. What to do with it. I have three adult discus of same size (5-6inch) in the tank. Also 2 baby discus of 2 inch.