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Retirement and forum shutdown (17 Jan 2022)

Hi,

John Howell who has managed the forum for years is getting on and wishes to retire from the role of managing it.
Over the years, he has managed the forum through good days and bad days and he has always been fair.
He has managed to bring his passion for fish keeping to the forum and keep it going for so long.

I wish to thank John for his hard work in keeping the forum going.

With John wishing to "retire" from the role of managing the forum and the forum receiving very little traffic, I think we must agree that forum has come to a natural conclusion and it's time to put it to rest.

I am proposing that the forum be made read-only from March 2022 onwards and that no new users or content be created. The website is still registered for several more years, so the content will still be accessible but no new topics or replies will be allowed.

If there is interest from the ITFS or other fish keeping clubs, we may redirect traffic to them or to a Facebook group but will not actively manage it.

I'd like to thank everyone over the years who helped with forum, posted a reply, started a new topic, ask a question and helped a newbie in fish keeping. And thank you to the sponsors who helped us along the away. Hopefully it made the hobby stronger.

I'd especially like to thank John Howell and Valerie Rousseau for all of their contributions, without them the forum would have never been has successful.

Thank you
Darragh Sherwin

Discus in trouble, please help

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23 Jan 2012 20:52 - 23 Jan 2012 21:10 #1 by smitas5 (Marius Smitas)
Hi there,
my discus keeps swimming down, not sure what to do with him.. belly looks a bit bigger than usual.
Last edit: 23 Jan 2012 21:10 by smitas5 (Marius Smitas).

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23 Jan 2012 20:58 #2 by igmillichip (ian millichip)
Attachment not showing....upload to YouTube and then link.

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23 Jan 2012 20:59 #3 by smitas5 (Marius Smitas)
How do you post a video?

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23 Jan 2012 21:12 - 23 Jan 2012 21:15 #4 by smitas5 (Marius Smitas)
also I lowered tank temperature from 30C to 29C yesterday evening.
he looks very tired now... not sure if I'm in trouble here

Last edit: 23 Jan 2012 21:15 by smitas5 (Marius Smitas).

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23 Jan 2012 21:31 #5 by stretnik (stretnik)
Replied by stretnik (stretnik) on topic Re: Discus in trouble, please help
Hi Marius, here's a link to Adrian's message page.

www.irishfishkeepers.com/index.php/my-pr...serprofile/arabu1973


Kev.

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23 Jan 2012 21:47 #6 by ghart (Greg Hart)
Have a read of this article you may get something from it.
www.discusnews.com/article/cat-02/swimblader.shtml

Hope it helps.. check out Part ii Headstanders

Greg

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24 Jan 2012 10:35 #7 by smitas5 (Marius Smitas)
3 hours after the video was taken and all the info taken in, the discus just started to swim away as normal.. nothing whatsoever and swolen belly gone too.
Still normal this morning. Will go easy on food today and tomorrow. Will get dewormer for them next time I'm arround SH

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24 Jan 2012 11:31 #8 by ghart (Greg Hart)
Good News then.

You may have alresdy done so but I would do all water parameter tests. Check that NITRITE level is zero.
Also do a say 30% water change.

Greg

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24 Jan 2012 11:46 #9 by igmillichip (ian millichip)
I'd recommend getting a fresh swab of faeces and identifying specific worms or internal parasites before dosing with a de-wormer (not all do all jobs).

Remember though, that for discus swim-bladder problems you can't be using treatments or looking for causes in the same way that, say, you'd look at goldfish swim-bladder problems. In goldfish the swim-bladder is associated with the intestine; in discus it is not particularly (it is associated more with the blood stream and is controlled by a special sphincter).

You'd need to rule out bacterial infections....you are not going to easily diagnose them from a faeces smear, but as the fish is light coloured you may like to candle the fish (bright light behind it) and look for any red spotting internally on the blue/grey areas of the swim-bladder.

Food.....reduce drastically the amount of soft-digestible food (eg flake food or beef-heart) if you are using any of that, and replace with a food that the discus gut has to work hard upon to get it working.

Water....as clean as possible.

Ian

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24 Jan 2012 15:04 #10 by smitas5 (Marius Smitas)

food that the discus gut has to work hard upon to get it working.
Ian


Which food is that Ian? Bloodworm?

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24 Jan 2012 16:41 #11 by igmillichip (ian millichip)

food that the discus gut has to work hard upon to get it working.
Ian


Which food is that Ian? Bloodworm?


Blood worm, daphnia, cyclops, brine shrimp......(if disease free) are good for discus.
Tubifex is excellent....but they need a guarantee of being disease free; difficult to guarantee disease-free tubifex.
Spirulina is good.

Food does not necessarily have to be live.

ian

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24 Jan 2012 17:49 #12 by smitas5 (Marius Smitas)
will treat them with frozen bloodworm tomorrow

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24 Jan 2012 17:59 #13 by igmillichip (ian millichip)

will treat them with frozen bloodworm tomorrow


Variety is the key.
There's nothing wrong with dried food for discus (if they eat it), and I always use dried food for them, but not as a single diet.


ian

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24 Jan 2012 18:24 #14 by stretnik (stretnik)
Replied by stretnik (stretnik) on topic Re: Discus in trouble, please help
You are a clever guy Marius but I just want to say, make sure it's thoroughly defrosted and drain the Liquid off before feeding, Garlic additive is great as a booster to the Fish's health.

Kev.

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24 Jan 2012 18:25 #15 by arabu1973 (. .)
@smitas5
sorry i just got to answer to this tread, i see that the fish is ok now. If the discus swims with the head down and has a swollen belly there are few things that cause this:
1. Constipation, yep thats right, they can get constipated when they eat to fast to much dry food, this usually passes in a day or two max
2. They can swallow a gulp of air sometimes if they were fed flake and they swim head down for a while until the air is released at the other end, again 1-2 days max
3. Swimblader problems due to bacterial infection, if the fish still swims head down after 2 days treat with Furan2 as a bath

@Ian
i feed all my wild discus only with dry food (tetra prima mixed with sera discus and tetra pro color), i cant remember when they got frozen food or beefheart mix last and i never ever feed my fish bloodworms. Now and then i give them whiteworms or earthworms live or in peletform. This is the way i do it and it works wonders for me.

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24 Jan 2012 20:34 #16 by smitas5 (Marius Smitas)

You are a clever guy Marius but I just want to say, make sure it's thoroughly defrosted and drain the Liquid off before feeding, Garlic additive is great as a booster to the Fish's health.

Kev.

Havent seen those aditives before Kevin. I usually throw the tablet straight from the freezer and it takes seconds to disolve.
Learn some new every day :)

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24 Jan 2012 20:51 #17 by ghart (Greg Hart)
Kev is right you should probably defrost the food first. I cut the frozen packed portions to be used and put them in a half glass for water for a few minutes. I then drain off the excess liquid from the packs and use a small spoon to scoup out the food and drop it in the tank.
I have also recently started feeding Garlic Plus Flake purchased online from Plymouth Discus.

Greg

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24 Jan 2012 21:09 #18 by igmillichip (ian millichip)
Defrost completely first as Kev says.....yes the lumps will defrost as they go down into the water, but don't risk that.

Arabu....Tetra prima (and JBL Discus as I now tend to use mostly) are some of the higher quality dried foods (and certainly ones that mine get as their main food...even my wild discus).
But not all dried food are as good a quality as them. ;)
As for beef-heart.....not really good enough on its own for long-term health.

ian

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24 Jan 2012 21:20 #19 by ghart (Greg Hart)
Seahorse stock the frozen Stenker Good Heart which is a bit expensive but is used extensively by Stendker for their Discus stock so it should be good.
I made the mistake once of leaving some of this on a low table ready to feed my discus and when I came back into the room the dog had eaten it. :laugh:
Greg

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24 Jan 2012 21:34 #20 by igmillichip (ian millichip)

Seahorse stock the frozen Stenker Good Heart which is a bit expensive but is used extensively by Stendker for their Discus stock so it should be good.
I made the mistake once of leaving some of this on a low table ready to feed my discus and when I came back into the room the dog had eaten it. :laugh:
Greg


The Stenker food is a good mix of stuff.

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24 Jan 2012 22:10 #21 by stretnik (stretnik)
Replied by stretnik (stretnik) on topic Re: Discus in trouble, please help

Seahorse stock the frozen Stenker Good Heart which is a bit expensive but is used extensively by Stendker for their Discus stock so it should be good.
I made the mistake once of leaving some of this on a low table ready to feed my discus and when I came back into the room the dog had eaten it. :laugh:
Greg



Ah Greg, I'm feelin crap tonight but even that had me laughing, very funny.

Kev.

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24 Jan 2012 23:12 #22 by smitas5 (Marius Smitas)
definetly have to try garlic

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24 Jan 2012 23:36 #23 by igmillichip (ian millichip)

definetly have to try garlic


That's one reason why this half-italian hates italian food. :)
and tries to disguise it in the indian food I cook.

Not sure my discus would like my indian curries, but my dog used to (and they were not tempting stendker beef-heart morsels).

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24 Jan 2012 23:42 #24 by ghart (Greg Hart)
Kev wrote:
Ah Greg, I'm feelin crap tonight but even that had me laughing, very funny.

Kev

Really did happen and she also ate the rest of my prepared frozen food. The joke was on me that day :dry:

Greg

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