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sick discus


Chriswitt

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Help please

Any ideas on possible diagnosis and treatment?

My discus stopped eating 3 days ago and I noticed him passing a milky white sticky looking substance in its feces. He does not have any other obvious symptoms although possibly not as alert as his old self.

Cheers Chris.

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Will need more info before a proper suggestion can be made, what is in your tank? How big is the tank? What is your maintenance schedule and have you done any water tests?

From memory the discusguru (user on here) recommends treating with metro/prazi when they stop eating, and white stringy poos suggested a parasite problem (unless you have been feeding lots of white worms as they make poos white..)

Also introduce yourself in the welcome section and add your location to your profile you maybe near someone who is willing/able to come over and help or help out sourcing drugs etc.

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Thanks for that, I have now intoduced myself on the wellcome page.

Re. the sick discus, he is probably 6-7 months old and I aquired him 5 weeks ago. The tank is 300l and has 3 other recently intoduced discus sub aldults in it. The filter seems to be doing its job, no ammonia, no nitrite and minimal nitrate, PH 7.4 consistently, temp. 30C. I do a 50% water change every second day with aged, declorinated, 30C water, the tank is bare bottomed and I srub the glass every week. I feed Novo bits beefheart and blood worms.

The white poo was not stringy it was literaaly like cloudy mucous. I have moved him to an isolation tank and upped the temp to 33c and added 2 tablespoons of salt per gallon of water and he seems to be taking a little food.

Hope this might give someone some clues.

Cheers Chris

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Very informative, cheers.

I am begining to wonder if my fish and potentially the others in the tank has been infected by a pathogen left over from my cycling the tank with a group of platties borrowed from the kid over the road.

I am worried that my other discus might fall sick and if that happens I might be forced to remove them all to an isolation tank for treatment. If that becomes nessessary it might make sense for me to sterilise the main tank and filter to get rid of any nasties and do a fishless cycle to eliminate the risk of introducing nasties. The problem here is I can't find anywhere that sells clear ammonia to start the cycle.

Does anyone out there know where I can get clear ammonia?

Cheers Chris

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Why would you remove the fish and treat them? If you suspect your tank has been infected then treat them in the tank (lower water level to minimise drug usage if that is a problem) then you treat them and the tank.. Of course some drugs will kill of the filters but that can be managed if your tank is 300L and only has 4 discus in it and you are doing large water changes every second day I would say you will be fine.

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Tanya you are a star. There is a Clean Tec in Hamilton and I'll get on to them on Monday and hopefully they can supply me. Otherwise your offer is very generous and I'll be taking it up. Cheers Chris.

Ryan thanks for your reply and the more I think about the more I realise your approach would be the better one. The reason I've removed the fish that's showing symptoms is that I'm hoping the others aren't infected. If the treatment works and the others show symptoms then I'll do as you suggest.

This is a great forum. Thanks Chris.

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