flukes

[aquababy]

I love to sit in the evening after the kids have all gone to bed, the house is quiet, I'm feeling relaxed, just to watch my discus.......flash against all the darn plants!!!!

Background:
I have been studying discus for the last six months. I have owned discus now for two months. Despite all I learned, I still purchased discus with flukes. My bad. They looked good when I bought them but shortly after bringing them home they started wiggling, jiggling, shaking like wet dogs, and of course flashing their gills on everything in sight. (lets not forget rapid breathing).

My water is soft (use RO and RO right). My pH is 6.5ish. Temp is 85 degrees. 50 gal. tank.

over the past month and a half, I have treated the fish in three formalin 3 baths, isolated the worst fish and treated with quick cure. My last effort was to treat the entire tank with paragon (I wont do that again, talk about stressed out neurotic fish). Yet, I am sad to say that not four days after the treatment they are flashing again at the gills.

I heard droncit is the way to go. Much literature says that many tank bread discus have flukes that resist formaldahyde, malachite green (Quick cure), and Dylox (paragon).

Any suggestions???

Thanks

 

[RedTurquoise]

does the flashing occur quite often or is it just once in a while?

It has been said that discus will never be rid of flukes! Not sure if that be true or not! However, the best way to cure the flukes is to use a 21 day treatment using flubendazole, 20g every 2nd day with 50% water changes daily. Because flukes follow a cycle to reproduce by laying eggs outside of the discus, the only way to really kill flukes is when it is free swimming before it has a chance to imbed itself into the skin/gills. Of course, this should be done in a QT or separate tank.

 

[aquababy]

Thanks for replying