A few questions from a newbie

[gmwilsonuk]

(1) I've recently purchased two Red Leopard Discus from a dealer who imports from Penang and is quite popular with his fish. He treats them for parasites but should I treat them just to be on the safe side and if so with what?

(2) How often should Discus be treated if this is a repeated process?

(3) I have a 140l tank filtered by an Eheim 2217 and a Eheim 2222, heated with a Visi-therm 300w and was wondering how many Discus I could have in this tank?

[sammigold]

Hi Gmwilsonuk, Welcome to the forums!!

A general rule is 1 adult discus per 40 litres, so you should be able to have 3 adults or maybe 4 or 5 juveniles..(but they will grow! so you would need to upgrade or perform more regular w/c)

They do best kept in a group of at least 3.

If you are quarantining them then I would personally just keep an eye on them for the next month rather than treating them for anything...(Unless you know for sure they have something then you are really medicating for no reason)

In regard to regularity of worming... some people will do it approx. every 6 months... others wait until symptoms of such problems show....I think it depends on what type of foods you are feeding them... if you are feeding live foods etc which can carry parasites then you would be advised to treat your fish for parasites more regularly than someone who feeds their discus non-live foods. JMO. HTH

There are some wonderful expert discus keepers on this forum that should be able to put you in the right direction and will correct me if I am wrong in regard to the worming....

If you add any extra fish to your aquarium always be sure to quarantine them for at least 3-4 weeks in order to ensure that they dont bring any diseases or parasites with them into your healthy population. (somethings can take a while to show)
Enjoy!!!

[Merrilyn]

Welcome to the forum GMWilsonUK. Great to have you join us.

Some really good advice there from Sammi.

We love pictures, so whenever you feel like getting out the camera, put some pics on the forum.

Cheers, :P

[G-1000]

Agreed

Sammi has done it again !

G

[Bill T.]

Because you live in England, you should be able to get a product called Octogen. In my limited experience, this stuff really gets rid of intestinal bugs - worms, etc. - with no major harmful side effects.
It may give you a slight ammonia spike, which you manage with increased water changes for a while.
So if the fish start going off theit food, or getting bloated bellies, or even pinched bellies, it could be useful.

[sammigold]

Agreed

Sammi has done it again !

G

:lol: :lol: :lol: Its all that tutelage (spelling?) from Ladyred and others including yourself G.... I think I might have learned something!!!! whaddya reckon ? :lol: :P

[sammigold]

Is tutelage actually a word??? (sammi races off checking dictionary...) .... well it is... but it is sort of a different context ..tutelage - guardianship....

Now that the English lesson is over... I think I should have said "all the tutorials" LOL

ps. thanks LR and everyone who has imparted their knowledge in the past year...

[samir]

anything from south east asia will most likely have parasites. the fish exporters do not breed themselves, they collect fish from all over the place. for example if i order 500 pigeon blood they will probably be from 30 different breeders,agents,other exporters,so worming is essential. dont mix them with any other fish till you are sure they are ok and clean of all infections diseases worms etc . first let them settle down and then i suggest treat them for gill flukes and tape worm first with praziquantel you may have to repeat the dose in 7 days to break the worm cycle. then after a few days treat them with levimasole hydrochloride (swine, poultry etc wormer).
dosage 1 drop per 7 litres. i do not feed my discus any live food. i had a few discus from singapore that, after worming, were shooting out worms from their behinds like machine gun fire.

[G-1000]

I cant spell either thats just unpossible for me lol

But I think its a great forum when you can get the very best advice from thousands of dedicated discus keepers around oz and it costs you absolutely nothing.

So thanks to everyone !

G