Very Sick Discus-help needed

[Conrad]

i bought three very sick discus around two weeks ago for ten bucks each. Extremely emaciated, white jelly-like poop, not interested in food at all and just sitting at the top of the tank in a corner. Ive got them in a 90 litre bare bottom tank. The tanks on 30c daily wc's of 25% with aged water ph 6.5 and ive given them a round of prazi. Ive got metro and gave them their first dose tonight of 200mg/20 litres as recommended by my vet(ive got a feeling he googled it) does this dose rate sound right? Also im going to do a pp bath so how much do i use for 90litres? Lol last question... can i do multiple treatments in one ie. metro and prazi, metro and pp, prazi and pp or is this going to kill my fish with stress? Ive been keeping discus for three years successfully and havnt had to nurse any back to health so any advice would be greatly appreciated.

[Conrad]

Could somebody please shed some light as i fear each day that goes by will make it much harder to save these beautiful fish

[giorid]

Hi conrad, buying sick fish because they're cheap is never a good option, it will cost you more in medication, time, and worry than if you spend a little more and get healthy discus. Discus are a very sensitive fish, once they get sick it takes a real pro to get them back to healthy, It is also very risky for the rest of your fish, even if you keep them in a separate tank, as infection can travel through water spray in droplets when you work around the tanks. Treating with multiple medication is not a good idea, better to use one at a time, and do a water change and filter through carbon for one day then take the carbon out and put it in the garbage, don't use it again, and add the new medication, always do this. Keep things as clean as possible. Since the fish are under alot of stress make sure you feed them the food that they were used to until they get better, then try new foods, don't over feed as they will only eat very little and keep the water and the inside of the tank very clean, and never clean your other tanks at the same time as the risk of infection is very high, maybe I said to much, hope it helps, good luck.

[Nev]

Hi,
Gotta agree, buying sick fish is asking for trouble.

[ILLUSN]

metro dose 25mg/L so 90L = 2.25g

doe once every 48 hrs with a 30% water change before each dose.

pp use 2mg/L as an overnight bath.

buying sick discus is BAD if they wont eat they are hard to save.

[Conrad]

yea i know buying sick discus is bad idea lol theyre in a diff room to my discus. Im still struggling with dosage with pp wen it comes to mg. And so my 5 200mg tabs of metro arnt cutting the mustard?

[Old Dave]

As Illusn and many others have said, buying sick fish is never a good idea but now you have made the commitment as long as you keep up the quarantine/isolation you might have a good opportunity to learn a lot about discus & treating ilnesses.

Don't share any nets, buckets, hoses etc with any other tanks.
Be prepared to commit 3 months to the treatment & monitoring, and don't expect your fish to be first class if they survive the process.

Lots of great advice here, posting pics can show symptoms you overlook.

Treat in a small/modest BB tank to minimise the number of tablets you have to use, have plenty of prepared water available and keep up the aeration & water changes.
Keep the temp up to hasten parasite cycles.
hth,

Dave

[giorid]

Ps, forgot to tell you that whenever you do your water changes bring the ph .5 lower, so if it's at 6.5 now take it to 6 until you reach 4.0 and leave it there for a week or two then bring it back up slowly, apparently a low ph will kill off any bacterial infections and you should see an improvement within a day or so, this advice is from a world renoun breeder, so I think it should be safe enough to follow.

[Conrad]

Thanks for the replies guys. I will get some pics up soon you guys might spot something else. I didnt buy these poor fish because they were i just hated seeing these fish in the state were in. My mate bought them awhile ago an i watched deteriate slowly so i bought them to try and save them. I dont share any equipment between tanks lol im very paranoid that my wilds will get wat these guys have so im extremely careful. I think there might be some improvement as these fish will eat a tiny bit now wen before they wouldnt even look at it.

[Hooked]

Gday Conrad,

I was just wondering if you had any luck with the sick fish?

Cheers