Discus is having spasms

[discusboy]

:cry:

Hello Everyone,

My yellow phoenix discus is currently having muscle spasms. He sits at the bottom of the tank while the other 3 cobalt discus I have are swimming all around.

He is currently still eating, but is rather listless.

I have separated him to the Hospital tank because the other fish have lot's of vigor. He is not a new fish, this was the first discus I owned.

Water temp is O.K as well as ammonia.nitrite and nitrate.

My personal thoughts are that he has internal parasites, heximita

Your comments would be appreciated.

[marg]

When you say Muscle Spasms what do you mean - can you describe them a bit more - maybe someone on the Forum will be able to give you some advice then.,

Regards,

Marg.

[discusboy]

The fish have jerky movements.

Their head jerks to the side, and their body flinches.

[Merrilyn]

Hello discus boy. I don't like the sound of the fish sitting on the bottom of the tank and shaking.

Is it posssible that the temperature of tank may have dropped during the last few days. There is a condition called "shimmy" and although not usually seen in discus, I guess it's a possibility.

First thing I would do is to increase the temperature in your hospital tank, and add some rock salt to the water. One teaspoon per ten gallons will be sufficient. Then I'd like you to post all the parameters of your tank, (the one he was in, not the hospital tank) like temperature pH, GH, ammonia, nitrites and nitrates. Sometimes these numbers can give us a clue as to what is going on.

The other thing I need to know, is what, and how often do you feed. Have you recently been feeding live blackworms or live tubifex worms. What is your normal water change routine, how many gallons, and how often.

We'll try to give you some answers to your problem.