Discus in trouble, Please help

Hi there fishkeepers
I have 11 discus in 450L tank + other fish.
Water at 28C, 6.5 pH, CO2, ammonia 0, nitrite 0, nitrate 20, tds 100

most of them look down (bad mood). hiding, but most of all disturbing is very fast breathing with one gill.
Tried Kusuri worm treatment
Tried Girodol 2 by JBL 2 times (week apart)
Now trying Sterazin

Can't see it changing anything.
Externally I can only see that fins are way up.. they usually are very much pointing down.

Tryed switching co2 off, but makes no difference.

what size are the discus? is a 450L not a bit small for 11 discus? what else is in the tank with them?
may be irrelivant but i wouldn't know a whole lot about discus asuch... have you introduced any new fish, could be paracites on the other gill(can't think of the name of it, gill flux or something )
dave

something like this

www.fishdoc.co.uk/disease/flukes.htm

what size are the discus? what is your water routine?

Do you happen to know what your TDS meter reads exactly (it doesn't actually read TDS anyway).

Depending on the type of meter calibration you have:
the maximum comfortable Reading for discus (not Heckel) on 442 calibrated meter is 67ppm;
the maximum comfortable reading for discus (not heckel) on a sodium chloride meter (a 0.5 calibrated) is 50pmm.
But you also don't want that to drop too low either for non-heckels.

Starting some partial water changes each day for a few days will help replenish the water buffering.

You could have a gill parasite in the tank. Watch carefully to note any worsening.

Are the fish eating?

ian

dave wrote:

what size are the discus? what is your water routine?

discus are from 3-6" and growing is very slow.. I change 100L approx every week, but at the moment on stretazin, so no water changes till the end of the cycle.

igmillichip wrote:

Do you happen to know what your TDS meter reads exactly (it doesn't actually read TDS anyway).

Depending on the type of meter calibration you have:
the maximum comfortable Reading for discus (not Heckel) on 442 calibrated meter is 67ppm;
the maximum comfortable reading for discus (not heckel) on a sodium chloride meter (a 0.5 calibrated) is 50pmm.
But you also don't want that to drop too low either for non-heckels.

Starting some partial water changes each day for a few days will help replenish the water buffering.

You could have a gill parasite in the tank. Watch carefully to note any worsening.

Are the fish eating?

ian

Hi Ian,
it reads in PPM units, made by D-D and it's called TDS-3. Says calibrated with NaCl. after water change it shows 80-85 and in a week it usually goes up to 100. from wednesday I will. just want to finish the course of stretazin, but now having doubts if it's the right stuff as it's not making any changes sixth day in. I also lowered temperature from 28 to 27C.
Fish will eat anything, frozen bloodworm, beafheart, prima, JBL tabs. all of it. some of the discus takes their time to come to feed, but all eat.

How do I get rid of the parasite? It actually made the whole fishkeeping experience a nightmare. I'm trying different stuff for nearly 3 months.

smitas5 wrote:

igmillichip wrote:

Do you happen to know what your TDS meter reads exactly (it doesn't actually read TDS anyway).

Depending on the type of meter calibration you have:
the maximum comfortable Reading for discus (not Heckel) on 442 calibrated meter is 67ppm;
the maximum comfortable reading for discus (not heckel) on a sodium chloride meter (a 0.5 calibrated) is 50pmm.
But you also don't want that to drop too low either for non-heckels.

Starting some partial water changes each day for a few days will help replenish the water buffering.

You could have a gill parasite in the tank. Watch carefully to note any worsening.

Are the fish eating?

ian

Hi Ian,
it reads in PPM units, made by D-D and it's called TDS-3. Says calibrated with NaCl. after water change it shows 80-85 and in a week it usually goes up to 100. from wednesday I will. just want to finish the course of stretazin, but now having doubts if it's the right stuff as it's not making any changes sixth day in. I also lowered temperature from 28 to 27C.
Fish will eat anything, frozen bloodworm, beafheart, prima, JBL tabs. all of it. some of the discus takes their time to come to feed, but all eat.

How do I get rid of the parasite? It actually made the whole fishkeeping experience a nightmare. I'm trying different stuff for nearly 3 months.

I presume then that it is the 0.5 sodium chloride calibrated.
The meter does not actually read TDS at all. What is does is to read conductivity then attempts to make a best guess using the sodium chloride calibration.

Discus (not the wild heckels mind) do best with a conductivity of 50 to 100 micro-siemens/cm.
When your 0.5 calibrated meter reads 100ppm, then that works out to being a conductivity of 200 micro-siemnes/cm (which is getting close to the lower end of what you'd keep Malawis in or the upper end of what danios would do fine in).


See www.irishfishkeepers.com/index.php/fforu...dissolved-solids-tds
for some info on TDS (for my opinion on it anyway).

From my recommendations in that, your TDS should be reading a max of 50ppm but not dropping below 20ppm (else you could end up with stability problems).

Although I am a massive fan of Waterlife products, Sterazin is not one that I would usually bother using on discus to be quite honest (it's a good medication, but just one of the ones I don't use on discus....no real reason though).

Continue the sterazin course. You'll have to filter it out before trying another product (one of the things about Waterlife products is that you really need to take care about not mixing them): activated carbon is good.

There are physical (chemical rather) reasons why a discus may gape its gills......too acid, too alkaline, too high a conductivity, waste products in the water that make it work hard etc etc.

Watch out for cloudy spots in the eyes or tattered fins......often a good sign that the water is not good (diseases would be second thing to look for in such a case).

It is usually a good idea to make sure the water and filters are all clean and good before adding any medication.

If you have a gill parasite, then it is not going to be easy to get a definitive ID on which one it is. So, you will to a certain extent be guessing.

You may even find that only one of the fish is ill.....the others could be reacting to 'different' behaviour in the tank (by the ill fish) or maybe you have changed the position of a plants even.

If your fish are feeding, then that is a good sign.

Trials and tears, and pot-luck sometimes, will always be with fish-keeping. Many of us have bought what looks like great stock to add to an established tank, yet it turned out to be duff (and introduced all sorts of problems).

Discus are pretty good at swaying away many of the diseases that simply see other fish drop dead easily, but that doesn't mean they can cope with all.

ian

During medication course, will I feed fish or let them starve? flukes/worms might be in the stomack also..?

Feed them, but maybe less.
You don't want to be adding extra load to the water (eg waste).
Although a healthy discus will benefit from a few days without food, you don't want the discus going off their food when ill.

ian

Just speaking from my own experience and hope it can help...I keep my Discus at 29deg and I find the only thing that works reliably if sick is increase the temp of tank to 30 and i would do 25% water changes daily until they recover I have tried and tested this and it has worked for me on a couple of occasions. Maybe some others on here may have dif ideas or you but hope I helped in some way..