Discus Gills

[peteburgiss]

HI i have been keeping discus for about 2 years now without any trouble but now my discus have suddenly developed funny gills, its hard to describe but they look like they have turned inside out on the worst case fish, i have wormed with wormer plus but this has had no effect. I do have a high nitrate level that i am dealing with but the fish seem normal in there behavier and feeding well.
Has anyone any ideas what this could be ? plus can someone recommend a reliable product for removing Nitrate ?

[Hollowman]

Welcome to the forum,

The problem with the gills is more than likely caused by a bacterial infection that has caused the pump mechanism just behind the gill cover to become extended. It cannot be reversed ime, so too late to treat now. Generally this have been caused by poor water quality over time or not noticing other problems as they developed.
A wormer will not do anything for the gills now that they are extended, you may see the fish breathing more heavily to make up for the pumps not working properly.
Nitrates can be reduced by larger, regular water changes like 30% at least twice a week. How much are you doing at present? Some water supplies 'do' have high nitrates, so you need to test your water. Also test for Ammonia, NitrIte and Ph. What filter system do you use? are you planted or BB tanks?

More info needed to give more help. But I hope this is a start.

H

[peteburgiss]

Hi thanks for the reply i am just about on top of the nitrate problem now i have increased the water changes even though i have had no problems in the past with the routine i had. I have changed from plastic to live plants too. As for the gill problem i think after talking to a few other people it might have happened as a result of me up grading my filter, i was using a trickle filter that was built in to the tank, i am now using a fluvel 205 external filter which is giving me a much better turn over, it has been running for about 6 weeks, i was unable to run the two together as i had to adapt the lid containing the old filter to fit the new pipes, however i did use all the old filter media in the new filter and asumed that would be ok. nitrite is at 0 amonia 0 and ph 6.4 so apart from the nitrate all seems well, just a little frustrated that some of my discus now have damaged gills. thanks again.