Battle Damage or somthing else gill related ??

[TomNS]

Hi guys,

I am fairly new to raising discus I have only really owned mature discus for the last 5 or 6 years but I went out and bought 12 very young fish in I am getting them set to put in my 125g tank.

Anyway I have had them for 3 or 4 weeks now and one has developed a missing part of his jaw or the flesh over his gill and his gill one one side is totally exposed.

Normally with my bigger fish this is from a bit of a fight - I thought this was probably the same - I had been dosing the water with melafix during the bi-weekly water changes but I have not see much improvement in a few weeks.

The other question is should I worm these fish - I have had them for a month and fed them baby brine and discus deluxe for the last 4 weeks - I don't know if there is a worming precaution I should take.

Any ideas - check the attached photo - excuse the brown algae - this 80L tank catchs the sunlight and it is hard to keep ahead even with a UV filter.

Sorry for the poor exposure it is hard for my dumbass digital to keep up - I could nail a shot on my T90 film camera :)

Thanks for the advice
Tom

[Merrilyn]

It actually looks like a gill deformity. Is it possible that the little fish had this all along, and you didn't notice?

If it is an injury, I doubt very much that it will grow back at this stage. You might like to replace the melafix with rock salt, at the rate of one teaspoon per 40 litres of water.

With such young fish, I'd be inclined to increase the water changes from twice a week to every second day This will boost the growth rate.

[TomNS]

Thanks for the tip - I will pick up some rock salt from the aquarium shop near work and modify the water change regeme.

It may be possible that he had that before but I was pretty sure they were unmarked - but of course it would be hard to say - I thought I examined them all very closely - I guess not.

It doesn't seem to effect him though, has always eaten well, nice steady breathing rate - same as ll the the others - doesn't favor a side and is happy moving around the tank freely.

Thanks guys

Tom

[mistakes r crucial]

You can save yourself some money if you buyyour salt from the local pool shop. We get 25kg up here for $6.50, you'll probably get 25gms for that much at your local FS.
MAC