Discus trouble

[WWTK]

Hello,

I am having trouble identifying a problem I am having with my discus, and I am hoping maybe someone here can help me out.

First, a little background on the fish.  I got them at the begining of April, and they have all been in the same tank since that time.  The tank is a 120 gallon (18 in. deep x 5' long)with two emperor 400 filters on it.  The tank was empty when they moved in, and they have been its' only inhabitants.  There are currently 14 Discus in the tank.  I did have one fish die a while ago, and why he died is still a mystery to me.  Other than that, all of the fish have been doing very well up until this began.

About two weeks ago I noticed that the fish were starting to fight quite a bit, and I figured that it was probably time to separate some of them because they had grown since they were all put in the tank, and it is probably a bit more crowded in there than they would like.  I did not think much else about it at that time.

About a week ago I started noticing something strange on the sides of the discus.  A couple of them looked something like this:


wwtk.50megs.com/pics/sick003.jpg


At the time, I just attributed them to being "war wounds" and decided I better get some of them moved sooner than later and made plans to do so.  However, during the last week, things have gotten much worse, and now I am not sure what to do.  Here is what the worst one looks like now:


wwtk.50megs.com/pics/sick006.jpg


The fish are eating very well, and otherwise acting completely normal.  They are not hiding, or acting in anyway stressed.  They just look terrible.

I feed them Hikari BioPure bloodworms, and a beef heart mixture I make three times a day (they are still growing).  

I do 40% water changes every other day, and vacuum the gravel almost everytime I do water changes, it just depends on the time available, and how the tank looks.  Sometimes I might skip the gravel and just change the water.

Here are my water tests:

Ammonia       0
Nitrite       0
Nitrate       0
pH            7.6
Temp         88
GH           10 degrees
KH            6 degrees
O[sup]2[/sup] at saturation

If anyone has any ideas about what could be the cause of this, and a treatment regimine, I would sure appreciate hearing about it.

Thanks,

WWTK

Im not that experienced but Im almost thinking that it might be HLLE (Head and Lateral Line Erosion). Before you do anything however, research and find out if it really is. I read that the fish will act and eat normal. I hope it helps.

are the fish having any trouble breathing? the pH seems a bit high for one...and so does the temp. i would try and bring the temp down to 84-86. as for the pH i would try and lower that to about 6.8-7..as neutral as you can get it. 7.6 is WAY too high...it might be your tap water. half of the problem is the high pH, discus arent used to that pH and it is slowly going to kill them. the "war wounds" which you describe arent war wounds at all... they are a disease, i just don't have enough info. are they rubbing against any objects in the tank as if they are scratching?  are the fish bloated in any way? i have an idea of what it is, im just not sure yet....

[WWTK]

Thanks for your reply,

The fish behave completely normally, they do not breathe hard, hide, scratch or show any other symptoms of disease beyond their external appearance.  They eat very aggressively, and are very active in the tank (for Discus).

It has been suggested by others that this may be chilodnella, but I can find no real information about this disease anywhere.

Raising the temperature to around 90 degrees (or so I have read) can be quite healing and theraputic for discus on its own, that is why it is where it is.  I normally keep it at about 84-85 degrees.

My water is well water, I know it is high, and I need to do something about it at some point.  The water the discus were raised in was 7.2-7.4.  Other than setting up a holding tank with r/o water and a heater, I don't have a lot of options here.  Trying to adjust my pH down chemically would not be wise either becuase there would be too much bounce due to moderate to high TA and GH.  I have two tanks with discus in them, one is 120 gallons, and the other is 125 gallons.  I feed beefheart, and as I am sure you know that means lots and lots of water changes.  So trying to come up with 100+ gallons of r/o water every two or three days that has had at least 24 hours to age is a very big challenge that I have not yet solved.

WWTK

i also was thinking chilodonella. hopfully this page will take care of it. DPH is a very reliable site for me and gives me ideas for my own site. (click on the house if you wish to view it) but, they have in depth information on very many diseases. as for the temperature, i would say that it sounds perfect when normal, given, the higher temperatures are theraputic, it increases the fishes metabolism and thus produces more waste causing just as bad as a problem. RO can be quite expensive, i would take into consideration buying a couple of tap water purifiers and hooking them up to your water line so that you can come up with the 100+ gallons of water for changes. tap water purtifiers do the same thing as the RO units except they are much cheaper and run ALOT quicker. 10 gallons an hour...i have one myself and i love it. hopefully you can get through this bout of disease and get outta this mess quickly and stress free (for you AND the discus)
Personally, i would opt for the salt bath for about 10-15 minutes daily and then return to the tank. Just ask your LFS about a salt bath for Discus and they'll point you in the right direction.
Hope i could help!

http://dph.nl/sub-article/cat-02/chilodonella.shtml

Joe

What kind of salt is good for Discus? Can I use non-idoized salt like pickling salt? I use it for brine shrimp already and it is much cheaper than from the lfs.

Could the problem be HLLE maybe? I dont have my Discus book with me right now so I cant quote what it says but I do remember that the fish will behave as normal.

could be, but the salt will work either way. and yes that salt will work. i dont remember the dosage, but you can certainly find that somewhere on the internet.

[WWTK]

believe it or not what I read was:

3% until they flip over (eee gads)

or

1% for 10 to 15 minutes

Anyway, it would be a pain to do 20 fish that way...  So I will try medication first, we shall see in the next day or two what happens.

WWTK

best wishes and best of luck! keep us updated  

hmm i wonder what happened?! eek! hopefully everythin is fine  ;D