Albino Blue Diamond Discus

[Blue Leopard]

Hi Guys,

I live in Melbourne , Australia and have been keeping discus successfully on and off for 25 years now and have kept many different discus type strains in my time.
In the last couple of years I have purchased 3 Albino Blue Diamond Discus and they have all eventually died on me , they just seem to be quite a fragile and non robust strain IMO opinion compared with my other non albino strains ( Turks , Pidgeons, Melons , Normal Blue Diamonds, Yellow Crystals , Super Eruption , about 8 discus inc adults & sub adults )
They always seem to end up last in the pecking order and just seem to waste away , get picked on and eventually die!, they also seem to be quite blind with their vision as well compared to the other strains.
I purchased 1 from Keysborough Aquarium , 1 from Sunnyside Aquarium ( Aquatico now ) and 1 x from New Life Aquarium
When I purchase discus I always make sure they are eating well before purchasing, I worm my discus regularly for internal & external parasites/protozoa and worms to keep them healthy and feed them a balanced diet.
The other discus are thriving and healthy as can be in the my 4ftx2ftx30inch discus community tank but I just seem to lose my Albino Blue Diamonds.
Has anyone else had problems with this strain like me or have I just purchased dud specimens with bad genetics because I really love the look of this strain as they look amazing.
Any advice most welcome.

Cheers Neil

[sayid]

Hi blue leopard ;
i have also had bought some discus among them some albinos (yellow , white diamond and blue diamond) .
They generally come eating normal and gradually they start not to be aggressive at feeding times ,they also don't grow any bigger ,the next move is to become less sociable and then gradual wasting away in the corner of the tank by themselves and die . This takes about 12 to 18 months ,i have no idea why and when i have asked my LFS or other experienced discus keepers they don't have a definite ans ware or they say that the fish has been inbred too much or genetically weak .
I have no definite solution ,i have a blue turk and a marlbro red which i got from a breeder through LFS in dandenong as babies 4 cm ,they are about 17 cm and 3 years old but also lost a few discus along the way as well and its always hex or wasting away and its a concern .
One thing is for sure ,albinos are genetically weaker than more established strains .
sayid

[Blue Leopard]

Thanks for your reply Sayid, Yes quite frustrating as we may have to wait a while for these albino strains to become more established in the industry and become hardier strains
Re Hex probs > Just make sure you worm all your Discus regularly with Metronidazole for protozoa and Praziquantel for internal worms/parasites/flukes as most of the sought after strains of discus come from overseas and they usually come shipped with all these unwanted passengers!
Make sure you dose every few months after to make sure they don't come back too. The next problem discus owners have is having very dominant fish bullying the weaker fish for food or breeding space and they can do this to such a state that the weaker discus become weak , start to stress and hex problems start to occur, my experience is that the tank size is either not big enough for the amount of discus they keep or there is not enough discus in the tank to spread out and share the aggression ie minimum 5-6 discus per tank in this case which establishes a good hierarchy- Good Luck with your Discus keeping

[sayid]

Hi Niel;
One of the other strains which i have not had any success with is bulldog nose type discus ,i found them to be very sensitive and i have lost them to hex.
I also have found that once you treat for hex and it returns you have to go for higher dosage i e 20 mg per liter and i suspect that in the process the fish organs get damaged and if the fish is weak it eventually dies , i just lost a 6 year old discus after i treated it successfully with metro and the fish was ok for while then it developed i suspect some kind of internal bacterial infection ,it stopped eating , mild form of cloudy eyes, and clear poo which was not hex ,i did not have furan-2 on hand so i ordered some and treated the fish with some nitro furan that i had in the fridge but i could see that the fish had gone beyond the point of no return and he died before i received furan-2.
i am trying to change my approach to hex ,i have just read on this site that some readers treat the sick fish with higher temperature for about 10 days .
any way i have to wait and see what happens.
sayid

[Blue Leopard]

Fancy strains like that are going to have genetic type problems just like the very fancy goldfish available these days.
Heat is always a good thing for discus treatment as the hex type protozoa/parasites don't like it , id recommend metro and heat in a quarantine tank for bad infestations.
I always use metro/praziquantel every 3 months - 6 months as a preventative measure on my discus and a guy I know who has kept/bred discus for over 40 years does this with all his fish aswell
If you don't want to use metro/prazi for prevention some people use garlic instead.

[sayid]

i have bought this seachem garlic ,my fish hate the stuff ,but then again i probably should keep feeding the garlic and siphon it back till they get use to it.
re worming ,i have tried levamisole ,praziquantel and metro with one week rest in between in my 500 liter display tank and not a single worm but generally you always get some thing happening or a fish is sick so when you have a week of peace and quite you don't want to initiate any thing.
re hex i think i take your advice of heat e.g 32 c with metro 10 mg per liter ,4 treatment with a day rest in between and 50 % w c and that should do it .