Scrape on Discus's side

[carnival]

I noticed yesterday that one of my Discus was looking unhappy, hiding behind the filter, fins clamped, dark in colour. He did finally come out and took some live brine shrimp with a bit of coaxing, but then went back into hiding again. This morning he was improved and was eating fairly well, colour almost back to normal, but I noticed he has a scrape, approx 5cms, along his side and some damaged scales.
It looks like he has paniced at sometime and hit one of the pieces of wood or rock in the tank.

I was wondering if there was anything I should do, or will it heal by itself?

He is only about 4 months old, but very robust & growing fast , and eats like a horse normally, and until this happened had been challenging for the top spot in the tank pecking order so I would hate to lose him.
Any advice would be welcome.
Cheers
Peter

[jasonmomm]

One of my young discus did exactly the same, hiding, dark, skittish, and ended up with 2 very bad scrapes which looked terrible.

I moved him to a barebottom QT tank with just a heater, sponger filter and a large airstone, and treating with Melafix. I must admit to being a bit heavy handed with the amount of melafix I put in, but over the past 2 days he/she appears to be recovering well. I did about a 25% water change after 24 hours also, and added a small amount of melafix again.

Good luck... HTH.

[ILLUSN]

Surface damage like that is nothing to worry about, adding salt at 1tsp/40L will keep the sime coat healthy and make it heal faster.

just keep up the water quality.

[carnival]

thanks for the super quick replies, much appreciated.
Peter

[BigDaddyAdo]

Just like with humans, the single most important factor is keeping it clean, hence the importance of water quality.


Ado

[carnival]

Thanks, I will step up the water changes and add some salt and see how he gets on. Is rock salt ok? Or is there some type in particular that is better??
Just rang home to check how he is and he's hanging around the empty worm feeder looking for food and chasing his tank mates away, a good sign I guess. Being fairly new to keeping Discus (approx 12 months) its a bit daunting when something like this happens, its great to have found somewhere to get good advice.
thanks again for all the quick replies
Peter

[Hollowman]

Good advice already given, the water should fix him. I am not a lover of Melafix though, the salt should be enough.

H

[jasonmomm]

Hollowman, what's your reason for not liking melafix? Just curious.

Has generally worked well for my Africans in the past and has done wonders on my injured discus over the past 3 days.

[Hollowman]

Merrilyn touched on it earlier in another thread. I have never seen a marked improvement in my fish, and I have used the product, that clean water did not fix in the same time. I had used it for broken fins or scrapes, but when I had run out of the stuff, I found the healing time was just the same when subjected to regular water changing.

I like the smell of it, I like smell it gives the tank for a few minutes, but like Merrilyn suggested, because discus have a protective slime coat, i think this might reduce the effectivness of the product. I think like most 'herbal remedies' do they work, or do we just believe they work?

Hope that give you an answer to my reasoning, Oh, plus it's an extra cost, and if we put it in the bracket of a med, then I don't like using meds unless I really need to.

:) H

[carnival]

When I got home from work last night I could hardly see the scrape and the damaged scales look like the are back in place. He (We call him "Big Blue") was back to his old self, hogging the food and trying to keep the other Discus away from "his feeder", his colour was back to normal and fins spread and no longer clamped.
I did a water change but decided not to add the salt as things had improved so much, when I tested the water everything was fine, Nitrate measured 5, ph 6.5, Nitrite and ammonia Zero.
Thanks everyone for your replies they are much appreciated.
Peter

[BigDaddyAdo]

Great to hear.

I have used Meafix but whether it made a difference or not i have no idea. After reading the ingredients i decided that it cant hurt and used it anyway.

I also like the smell. :)


Ado

[Hollowman]

I also like the smell. :)

Ado

......... :lol: :lol:

Good news