Please help!!

[mnat7954]

Hey guys,
What is this???
I recently added 6 new fish and now all my 5 old fish look like this!! It's been almost a week now and they don't seem to be getting better BUT they are all still eating!
I have raised the temperature to 31 degrees and am using Bactonex and Tri Sulfa on the advice of an aquarium.
Is this bacterial or fungal? Is there anything else I can do to help? I don't want them to die!!

[Sabrina]

@Syide
@Hollowman
Hello, i hope the above two people can help you as i dont know what is wrong with your fish.. Did you quarantine the new fish before you put them in with your old fish? What are you water tests? Ammonia, Nitrite, PH and Nitrate? If you added the new fish all at once your water may have spiked in ammonia, nitrite or nitrate.. Please test your water and post the readings here... And if you didnt quarantine the new fish one of them may have been carrying a illness.. Dont make any sudden changes, please post water tests asap

[Hollowman]

Oh dear... no quarantine I am assuming and a new diseas affecting the old fish. I hard lesson learned. Large daily water changes, salt dip might help. As suggested water parameters will help.

[mnat7954]

Yes I am guilty of not quarantining my new fish :( actually im not sure how you are meant to quarantine... My new fish never showed any symptoms and still dont, do you always just treat new fish just-in-case? Or would they have still eventually infected my old fish even if I did quarantine??

They are all still eating which is a good sign I did my last water change 4 days ago and have salt in the tank at 2ppm. Yesterday I treated with Blue Plannet's Tri Sulfa. I tested the water parameters but my test kit is old. I am also guilty of not keeping up with testing of my water quality, but I never seen to have a problem with water quality and have had multiple pairs spawn in this communal tank.

pH: 4.7
TDS: 1280ppm
Ammonia: 0.25ppm
Nitrite: 0ppm
Nitrate: 40ppm

Thanks for your help!

[Hollowman]

Your water is all over the place. Daily water changes from now on and for now try and do 40-50% changes.

QT is so important. Which fish did you add? The PB's?

QT takes place over a period of 5-6 weeks where you keep the new fish in a completely different tank and set of equipment so not to contaminate. After observing and maybe pofrolactic treatment (as you know nothing of the sellers parameters) use your runt fish as a sacrificial lamb and add to the QT tank and see what happens. Killing one is better than wiping out all your fish.

You have learned a hard lesson, so please read up on how to look after your discus. Ask first ok

[Hollowman]

By looking at your BD's, I think they don't have much chance unfortunately but keep up the water changes and salt.

[mnat7954]

The yellow looking PB in the top right was also an old fish but it doesn't seem to be affected either! The two checkerboard PBs are new fish.
They aren't even blue diamonds, they were red spotted greens and beautiful looking fish, I have definitely learnt my lesson! They are still eating so maybe I have a chance??
Would it be worth adding something like multicure (malachite green) into the tank or the daily water changes and salt is best?

[sayid]

+1 Hollowman,+ 1 Sabrina,
Further to above advice ,send us picture of the whole tank ,how many liter ,your w/c regime ,temp ,etc ,where are you living and your tap water reading ?
This is pure guess but from your water reading above ,
. your ph is low which means you are over stocked / feeding too much or both.
. TSC is high which means you are not doing enough water change w/c for the number of discus carrying .
.ammonia is high ( should be 0 ).your going through a mini cycle because of sudden addition of high fish load
.nitrate is high which means too many fish ,not enough w/c .
The last thing you need is medicating because you will stress your fish even further ,i advise you to do do large w/c with aged water of similar temp and test your water every day ,addition of 1 TBS of rock salt per 40 l of water ,just nice clean water .
also add couple of air stones to enable your good bacteria to neutralize your ammonia more efficiantly .
I also advice you to read the stickies on this forum ( general discus care for beginners ) .
sorry for this long list but you have a steep learnig curve in front of you .please let us know how you go.
good luck .
sayid

[Sabrina]

Are you using Prime by Seachem? I would advice you to get some if you can and use it every water change, it will help with ammonia, nitrite and nitrate. Please do water changes as mentioned above and let us know how you get on in the coming days.. I am also guilty of not quarantine my new fish properly, and have also learn a big lesson from it so dont be to hard on yourself about that. Just do what you can now and i hope your fish pull through this.

[mnat7954]

Thanks guys so much for your help, really appreciate all the advice!

I haven't been using Prime for my water changes, but will get some today.

My tank is a 4ft (250L), current temp is 30.3 and previously Iwas only doing water changes once a week about 40% with Sydney tap water (pH 7.8) using a hose with a mist spray nozzle

I have 2 filters on the tank a 2200l/h and 1200l/h the smaller filter has a diffuser on the outlet to increase oxygen.

Inhabitants are 6 new discus (approx 5cms) 7 old discus (approx 10cms) and a few brittlenoses and loaches.

I'm determined not to lose any fish! Will keep you posted. Thanks again.

[Sabrina]

Sounds good, big water changes and prime is a good start, i hope your babies make it through! Thats a nice big tank, i also have the same tank, 4 foot. I use buckets to do water changes, its messy but i find its better as i can add the Prime to the buckets first before adding the water to the tank. My fingers are crossed for you and your fish!

[mnat7954]

Woop!!! No casualties guys!! One is still a little bit fussy and isn't really eating properly yet but the rest seem 100% better!

[fern]

The change from that black looking earlier photo really doesn't seem possible. Do you now have an opinion what caused the problem and what might have provided the apparent improvement.

[sayid]

Thanks very much for getting back ,90% of the time you don't hear back from people and you assume that they have lost the fish and too upset to come back to the forum and tell you the bad news but it is very rewarding for us to hear a good news especially if it comes with a healthy photo ,to be honest i am amazed how you pulled it through without any casualty .
A big well done for you .keep in touch.
Sayid

[Hollowman]

Good work, well done. What did you do that made the difference?

[mnat7954]

Thanks!!! I had to post a photo because I'm so proud that I never lost any... Well not yet anyway, one is still worrying me, but it's got its colour back so I'm hoping it will start eating soon!

To be honest I have no idea what disease they had, I know the aquarium that I bought the new discus from imports them from Thailand and only keeps them in quarantine for 2weeks before they are available for sale to the public.

I'm also not even sure what fixed them up in the end.. I took your advise and did daily 50% water changes (I'm still doing them every second day now) and keept the salt up. I also dosed with medication that had malchite green and acriflavine and once they started to look better I treated with wormer plus.

Fingers crossed for my last guy hopefully I can get 100% recovery!

[fern]

Thanks!!!
To be honest I have no idea what disease they had

hopefully I can get 100% recovery!

You can't leave it at that last post. Progress report as your efforts here rival Lazuras. Those fish looked almost dead.

[Hollowman]

Thanks!!! I had to post a photo because I'm so proud that I never lost any... Well not yet anyway, one is still worrying me, but it's got its colour back so I'm hoping it will start eating soon!

To be honest I have no idea what disease they had, I know the aquarium that I bought the new discus from imports them from Thailand and only keeps them in quarantine for 2weeks before they are available for sale to the public.

I'm also not even sure what fixed them up in the end.. I took your advise and did daily 50% water changes (I'm still doing them every second day now) and keept the salt up. I also dosed with medication that had malchite green and acriflavine and once they started to look better I treated with wormer plus.

Fingers crossed for my last guy hopefully I can get 100% recovery!

Good choice of meds, keep up the good work