alarming ongoing discus scraping - help me

[phillip166]

I hope someone can helkp. I'm stresses over this.

3 weeks ago i added 12 cardinals to my discus tank. By the next night 11 were dead. The following night the other one was missing. I got 9 bodies out of the 12 out of the tank.

2 Days later i noticed that a breeding pair of splendid betas were missing.

Next day was my normal waterchange day. I have a 6x2x2 heavily planted tank with 9 discus. 12 cory's, 2 albino bristles, 4 loaches. 12 ottos, 6 flying foxes. I usually do a 30 percent change every 4 days. I use aged water always (4 days cycling). I could not find any bodies during the change but with lots of wood and plants and i run the tank at 28degs i assumed they dissolved.

I also run UV and denitrator. I dont use co2.

I use 3 filters - ehein 2217 on the uv. 2213 with phosphate remover in it also. And a 2028proII with the denitrator. I use siparex (spelling) in all filters.

My normal water condition is. Ph6.8, 0 Amonia, 0 Nitrite. Nitrates are usually inbetween the yellow and the next colour but low anyway. Phospate is 0.

A week later i bought 3 new discus. 2 small b.diamonds and a medium cobalt. Had them in a small q.tank for a week then put them into the main tank. As i was adding the new fish i noticed a couple of my other discus not the news ones were flicking on the plants. Sometimes they do that for show but as i was adding the new fish i was thinking... i hope there aint no fluke infestastion happening.

The next day it was obvious that there was a problem. All of my fish were flicking but not the new ones. I decided to do a course of sterazin immediately. But did a water change first. And turned off the UV. By the second dose (day 3) the new fish were flicking also. And the new blue diamonds were dark.

Everyone is eating though except one blue diamond who keeps hiding.

I completed the 1, 3, 6, 8, 10 day dose as per the bottle but still the flicking was happening - didn't seem to be any better at all. Also very evidend scale loss from the scraping was evidend from flicking on the wood. Some of the discus also seem to tilt sideways and let the other ones pick at their bodies. I presume that this is something they do - or maybe not. they then start swimming again normally.

The flicking seems to happen mostly just before lights out when there is a lot of fin quivering and darting and flicking on tlants and wood.

Because of the scale loss i decided to dose them with promethusyl. Did that the day after the last serazin dosse but did a water change first.

That was 2 days ago and not i am at my whits end as nothing seems to have improved.

I dont know if the cardinals added some nasty bug into the tank that took 2 weeks to run down the dicsus to the poiont that parasites took over but that is what i am thinking. Dont think the new discus brought the problem in as it happened to them 2 days after.

I though that after the cardinals dies that the uv would handle whatever got them. Also the uv has a brand new tube and is working fine.

Anyway this had become a little long but i do not want to follow the advise of the aquarium i got my cardinals from (and all of my other fish) as i did find out that the cardinals were treated 4 days b4 i bought them for some fungal infection but they didn't tell me and they looked fine. I am not going to buy any more fish from them.

Any advise would be appreciated.

Also the only visible signs on the duscis is the damage from scraping plus a few little pimple like bumps - whitish on a couple of them.

[mcloughlin2]

Also the only visible signs on the duscis is the damage from scraping plus a few little pimple like bumps - whitish on a couple of them.

It could be white spot....i would put the discus in a hospital tank...treat for white spot and fungus to prevent the wounds getting infected.... :wink:

Check if u can treat for white spot and fungus at the same time before...and r any of the other fish showing signs of illness??? :?

Cheers,

Sam

[Merrilyn]

Phillip, I have a feeling this might be velvet.

A number of discus have been suffering from this lately, and it has the symptoms that you describe, and it is eventually fatal.

There are various threads here on the treatment of velvet. Personally, I would be going to your vet and getting some Metro tablets.

I hate to have to remind you, but please don't add any fish to an established tank without 4 weeks quarantine. I have seen this too many times.

[Lichan]

what actually is Metro and what diseases can you treat with it ?? is it an antibiotic tablet ?? I have seen in different threads it can be used for Hex and Velvet ?? Does Metro affect the biological filtration ??? I am very interested to know this ???

Kind regards
Pete

[Merrilyn]

Hi Pete, I got your PM and have replied.

I still think this is velvet, and the fact that the cardinals were treated 4 days before you got them sets alarm bells ringing in my head. The cardinals were no doubt carrying something, even though they appeared fine at the time of purchase. Dying within 24 hours of being transferred to a new tank is not normal, provided the water parameters were checked and made equal before transfer.

Metro is an antibiotic, also known as Flagyl, and available only from your vet. I'ts going to be way too expensive to treat the fish in the big tank, although it won't affect your bio-filter, the dose rate is 250 mg per 40 litres of water, repeated every 8 hours. With a tank your size, we're talking around 500 to 600 litres of water. Way too much to treat with an antibiotic.

My advice is this. You need to obtain a hospital tank large enough to hold all your discus for at least a week. A bio filter is not necessary, as you'll be changing water three times a day, and that will keep the ammonia and nitrites under control. This would be my first choice of treatment.

Waterlife make a good range of products, and the Sterazin is very good for gill and body flukes, but I think Protozin is the one you need to treat velvet. If we do indeed have velvet in the tank, then you will need to treat every fish in the tank, and not just the discus, to avoid reinfection.

If this is a long standing problem, and you are losing valuable fish, then you may be well advised to go to a vet and get gill and body scrapings examined under a microscope, so a definate diagnosis can be made. I know this is a tough decision, because it will mean sacrificing a fish, but it's the only way to find out the exact cause of the problem. Have a look under "Fish Friendly Vets" in the Diseases forum, to find a vet near you.

Hope that helps. Keep us informed of your decision.

[endless]

I had a pretty bad case of white spot a few days ago. I first noticed a spaghetti like white pimple (about 2mm long) on one of my discus but didnt make much of it as all my fish were still swimming around and eating. By day two though it was evident that my fish had ich as the spots had multiplied and most of my fish seemed affected. I remembered that i had a bottle of no brand ich medicine which contained malachite green, copper sulfate and some other chemicals which i cant remember now so i decided to use that for a three day course. After the three days there was no improvement which kinda baffled me a bit because the symptoms were obviously ich but the medicine did nothing to cure it. I decided then to use protazin which i had previously used before with success. three days later ich was gone and fish were bright and healthy again.

If your fish are showing white pimples give protazin a go. This medicine is quite pricey but it has proven to cure both ich and velvet.