I'm an ignorant muppet

[Munted]

I have had a Discus fish for about four years now, and I'm sorry to say, I have been the most ignorant fish owner you could imagine.

I have followed the instructions that came with the tank but, noticed the Discus looking a bit....well mostly dead really.... after I super cleaned the tank with recently! (Such a muppet) :oops: :oops:

Anyhoo. After discovering this website and being overwhelmed with information, I thought that my Discus dude had every illness possible.
(trying to add a photo so you can point and be shocked)

However, after reading some more, I think he might just have ammonia poisoning.

Yesterday the ammonia was at .45 and today I have managed to get it to near 0. Discus looking better already.

First of many questions.....

Are the carbon filters that are made for my AquaOne tank the best type of filter?

[Ghoti]

Good to see I'm not alone in the muppet stakes!

I would suggest that filter would be a far cry from adequate but will leave it to the more experienced contributors to comment.

Cheers,
Scott

[SS317]

Wow that is the worst looking discus I have ever seen :shock: I'm sorry to say but you need to put that poor little guy out of it's misery.

[Ghoti]

Wow that is the worst looking discus I have ever seen :shock: I'm sorry to say but you need to put that poor little guy out of it's misery.

May well be the case... but wait until Boxters, Mr Wild or ILLUSN reply. If anyone can save him, they can.

Cheers,
Scott

[Munted]

Thanks Scott :D

I hope we can save him.

SS317...please don't give up on him yet, he's looking slightly better today, even a bit of colour coming back to his fins.

He's survived two earthquakes and a muppet owner. So, with help and education, surely he can only improve from here.

[SS317]

You mite be able to save him, but I don't think it would be worth the trouble unless he has sentimental value for you. In which case go for it and I wish you luck.

[mitsui]

Wow that is a sick little fish :( I really hope you do what is best for the fish.

Do you know what kind of strain he is ment to be?

[Munted]

Wow that is a sick little fish :( I really hope you do what is best for the fish.

Do you know what kind of strain he is ment to be?

I certainly intend to do what is best for the fish, I just need to know what the best thing to do is. I'm a bit better educated now.

No idea about strains, heres a pic of him when he was a lot healthier.

[mitsui]

Wow that's a big change in colour it's really black in that first pic

[Mr Wild]

Ok well where to start!

So you have decided to try and do the right thing don't kid yourself this will be a long road and even when your sick of it you will have to carry on.

Good food, and clean water for awhile. If he lives, then perhaps you can try to clean any parasites out that he may have. Meds now would probably finish him off. Honestly, I've never tried to care for a fish in such bad shape.

Water changes 50% twice daily you need the water to have zero ammonia and nitrites and still use a water conditioner like prime or supachlor to negate the chlorine etc from town water. At this stage we are not trying to rebuild you bioload we are just trying to save the fish.

Go bare bottom tank for this one you want clean clear surfaces at all times, each wc wipe all the sides and bottom of the tank we are talking intensive care ward here.

You will need good quality food to try him with just a little at a time and you will have to take out whatever is left over in his tank after 10mins it cannot be left in there at all.

At this stage I will say try your best but expect the worst.

Good Luck

[ILLUSN]

sorry to say way to far gone, your best bet would be to increase the temp to 30c add extra airation start treating with metro but in that shape the dose will most lkely kill him

[Munted]

Fish still alive and eating. Huge improvement before todays water change but is now sulking in the corner.

Ammonia 0 nitrite 0 nitrate 5ppm PH 7.5
Temp 30

Treatments so far:

Methlyne blue and Malachite green
Pimafix
(no change)
Formalin
(no change)
Furan 2
slight improvement

So now I've gone to water quality and replacing the bacteria...
cycle, aquarium salt, discus buffer and aquaplus (is that like prime or supachlor?).

I still don't know if I should put the carbon filter back in.
Do I keep doing the 50% daily water changes?
Have metro on order from the vet and have a quarantine tank ready to set up. But will wait for him to get stronger before I go down that road.

Anything else I could be doing?

[ILLUSN]

MALACHITE GREEN + FORMALIN + FURAN2 = VERY VERY VERY BAD!!!!!!!!!

all 3 drugs linger for long periods of time

keep up the water changes keep the temp up.

[Mr Wild]

Munted

What happened to clean water and good food for awhile? Why ask for advice when you don't follow it?

:evil:

[swifto]

hi mate,put him out of his pain and suffering.do u have any other fish this sick in same tank.

[BigDaddyAdo]

Put him out of his misery. You are obviously not interested in following any advice we give you so why bother asking in the first place. I think its disgusting that you let it get this bad before trying to fix the problem.

[Munted]

I should have been a bit clearer with my post.

Those medications are what I have tried over the last several months, they were the advice given to me by several different pet shops and aquariums. After each medication, I used carbon filters, but didn't see any improvement.

I was just trying to illustrate what I had already done in case it affected the advice I was getting on this site.

The last pet shop advice I had tried was the Furan.

From this site, I had been following the advice of water changes and temperature etc but was still worried about the high PH and Ammonia so had done the salt and cycle and discus buffer which wasn't in the advice on this site but I felt it was important for the tank.

Anyway, it doesn't matter now. My husband put munted down last night while I was at work.

Thanks for all your help.

[swifto]

lesson learnt,seek help long before your fish get this sic.

[swampy1972]

Sorry you lost it, but it was best for the fish. Discus don't really need to be 'fiddled with' all the time. It's all about stable, clean water so I'd spend some time to ensure that's sorted before getting more livestock.
All the best ;)