Discus disease

This was an old post that I had in another forum. But I wanted to share it with you so that we can all learn from mistakes

Day 1

Today I went to a lfs and while looking around I saw this 5 inch Discus but had one of the pectoral fin badly damaged and had an ey infection with pop-eye. He was going to put her down but I suggested otherwise and gave it to me for free.

I prepared a tank which was already cycled and waiting to increase the temperature to around 31 degrees. Hopefully I will put some anti-bacterial medication in the tank for pop eyes.

Day 2

Got some shots, this evening but will try to get better pics

Discus in all its glory



The disease!!



Not a good pic but it shows the state in which the fish is!!!



I started treating it with an anti-bacterial. This evening the condition has worsened as the white patches were not that visible yesterday. If it is fungal??

Day 3

Use of human medication: Flagyll is a wide spectrum anti-biotic which is often used to treat fish locally. Flagyll is a trade name for a medication used by the opposite sex to treat fungal/bacterial infections. Same compound is present in some fish medications.

Main compound: metronidazole - Metronidazole is used to treat a wide variety of infections, including infections of the reproductive organs, urinary tract, lower respiratory tract, bones, joints, intestinal tract, and skin. It is also used topically to treat acne rosacea. It acts by killing bacteria and parasites.

Day 4

Today I went for the second option to start treatment with Flagyl. It seems that it is getting worse. I might try a Magnesium Sulphate baths later on this week. I am partially changing 20% water every two days. It seems that it is not eating and not even bloodworms. This could be a problem as it might weaken more and the disease spreads even further.

Day 5

More pictures...









Day 6

Unfortunately, the Discus died...

Thanks for the help, I think she was too weak to respond to treatment and even so she would have had permanent defects in its vision...RIP

Conclusion...

What was wrong with the treatment? Was the diagnosis correct?

there could have been a number of different problems there.. a good starting point would have been the salt bath. but i think you were onto a loosing battle before you started..

the stress of moving him a new environment (water params change) and the metro might have been too much. salt bath would have been my first choice.

On bringing sick fish home, IMO i would never do it.. its hard to pass by a sick fish without wanting to help it. But i would advise anyone looking at sick fish to leave alone. cross contamination of your healthy stock is not worth the hassle for 1 sick fish. unless your QT is in a different house

fwiw tanks used for quarantine and treatment should be totally empty. just clean water, no substrate just essentials like heater and a sponge filter.

The tank you see in the picture was the first tank used. Gradually it was placed into a bare tank. This fish ended up at my home due to the lfs wanted to euthanize it. I suggested to take it as a way to learn from such an experience to treat fish which in some cases would be an impossible feat.

Niko, did you move him twice?

From Day 1 to Day 2...he was moved to the new QT tank.

I am not an expert but IMO fish condition was more than critical and successful treatment in this case would be a miracle.
My advice would be to have quarantine tank ready before bringing new fish home. Quarantine tank should be strictly bare tank as organic substances that are in the gravel do affect all anti-bacterial (antibiotic) drugs and their correct dosage.
Metronidazole isn't broad spectrum antibiotic - it's recommended against protozoan and anaerobic bacteria. Looking at the pictures I would say it was probably secondary bacterial infection with possible parasitic infection. Short term bath in this case would be loosing very important time. One broad spectrum antibiotic and anti- wormer should be used in cases like this, as diagnosis isn't confirmed by microscopic or microbiological methods. Changing medication earlier than after 7 days from the beginning of the treatment is strictly not recommended. I personally, keep temperature at 29C in case of antibacterial treatment.

Thanks Chris for the feedback. Re-visiting the whole scenario one can identify certain issues which may be repeated or not.

Hi Chris..

not to go against what you are saying but IME i use salt baths as an addition to medication on external parasites. I have seen some fantastic results using salt from fish with similar external symptoms (not the eye).

to expand on what Chris was saying about not running courses through. resistance to such meds can happen in a very short period of time. for example. If you were to dose a med that required 100% for 4 days and on day 2 you did a 50% water change without re dosing there could be a good chance that the parasite/disease could get a chance to build up resistance. therefore rendering your med useless. Andrew Soh's The naked truth talks about an example of fly's becoming resistant within 5 days :o

meds and courses should be strictly adhered to with at least 2 days good water changes in between. I would always recommend posting your thoughts on medication before using as people like Chris can offer wealth of advice on the best course of action. the wrong med can lead to weakening your fish and all sorts of problems. patience, observation and informed dosing of your tanks can help more than shot gun medication.

temp changes, clean water and patience are some of the best free tools to use IMO

I can accept your enthusiasm for trying to save the discus BUT there was no way you could have saved it, the killer blow was the introduction into a Non bare tank, the second was a Toxic cocktail of drugs over 48n hours or so,
Don't take this personaly as we all have to learn. fist step always place the fish into a bare tank. work out the volume as all meds are based on a precise volume,
Make sure the water temp is roughly the same as the shop. then increase it slowly over 48 hours, 82 for a discus is sufficient to kill parasites such as white spot.
Try to accurately diagnose a specific disease. post all info on the site & waite for a response. only treat 1 med at a time,
Let it run it's course usualy a week or so.
ALWAYS filter the tank water over carbon to remove all traces of the Med and do a water change.
Adding a second Medication with traces of the first left in the system is asking for trouble, A toxic cocktail
From your pics it looked like popeye and Fungal infection. (a cotton wool like growth).
Once again nothing personal but please don't do it again.

Thanks for the information Russel. Seeing the thread in that way might mislead anyone. I can assure you that all daily water changes were made after day 2 in the bare tank. Certain responses from the original posts were omitted for reasons that they were made by others. yes, you are right, one can say that there was a cocktail of meds, though I was sure that the fish would not make it from day 2 as was not at all interested in food of all sort. As you rightly said, the disease started off with one and various other conditions progressed towards others. The thread like white material is an indication of fungus. Though, I must add that the fish got worse when it got the salt bath. Anyway, the idea of this thread was to learn from mistakes which I can assure you that there were many. Cheers.

metronidazol is a one of the best treatment, but for sick of this discus you supposed to use a metronidazol and levamisol 10%, and short bath in sera bactopur direct, and rise a temperature up to 33 deg,
this discus is sick because attack of roundworms cappilaria and Flagellate with 8 lines, the plase were you get your discus is not a god please to buy a any fish in next 2 months at list, i will get a fish with this disease in two different shop in a town (dub) and even treatment with (methylene blue), fmc , malachite green, interpet internal bacteria, sera bactopur, and anti white spots fish are still dyeing, just be careful with bringing a sick fish to your home and disinfect a fish tank properly with bleach. i can give a names of shops were a fish are sick by pw, if i cant heal this probably nobody can do it,
the reason of this is : SUPPLIERS ARE BUYING A LIVE STOCK FROM ASIA, AND SHOPS IN HERE PREFER A CHIP LOW QUALITY STOCK THEN SUPPORT OWN FISH BREADERS
I SPEND 60E FOR BARBS, FLYING FOXES AND XIPHORUS X VARIATUS, THEN I SPEND ANOTHER 100E FOR TREATMENTS AND I STILL WAIT FOR DELIVERY OF PILLS

Thanks adriano. Most fish which are important locally (here in Malta) come from Asia. The long journey and different conditions contribute to diseases. To add another thing, in some cases the exporters would not be honest enough to send healthy looking Discus or some other fish. You have to know your exporter to get good quality one. I always tend to buy such fish from locally bred breeders just so to be able to duplicate same water conditions as much as possible.