Discus Advice regarding stress

While your fish are eating, you should definately look into some method of medicating the food. It is generally considered more effective to get the medicine into the digestive tract rather than just a bath.

Gel-Tek has Praziquantel, Flubenol=flubendazole, and Metronidazole. You are supposed to add it as drops that the fish eat, but you can soak your food in it and freeze it if you want.

Levamisole Hcl is an agricultural product and I don't know of any ready to go aquarium products. Fenbendazole (panacur) is a veterinary medicine that I don't believe is available ready to go either.
 
Cool, my gang is definitely still eating. Some are more thin than they should be, but lets hope that this remedy is effective. I think moving some of the tank mates along to another home will help reduce the stress in turn making the recovery more effective!
 
I've also tried New Life Spectrum. Some of the fish love it, and others wont touch it. I have also used tetra color dry food. With any dry food granules, you may want to see how much they expand when they get wet. If they expand alot, you may want to soak first so that they dont expand in the stomach. Like Pinkertd, I also use the Hikari fbw, I use the ones with red lettering on a white background. I feed a mix of fbw and 50/50 plus by h20 life plus some beef heart.
 
star_rider said:
healthy Discus are kept in those temps.
in this case if you suspect parasites it is not unreasonable to bump the temp to 86-90. yes 90. young discus can handle the heat quite well
Click to expand...

Ok so it was for the treatment of parasites then. Need to get my facts straight. Thanks.
 
After a long break in discus keeping and now back into it.Years ago when i first started with these great fish i used the San fransisco bay brand of bloodworms but quickly stopped.They seemed way to dirty for my liking.whether it be that they just come that way or were defrosted to a verying degree and turned bad i dont know for sure.I will only use the Hikari bloodworms that are fresh and bright red in color.Even these you will want to make sure they have not darkened in color from careless suppliers.I will not buy if they are not bright in color.I like to use the flat packs as they dont defrost as quickly as the cubes and most of the shops i buy from will wrap the packs in newspaper to keep them frozen till i get home.Of course i will also feed live brine,flake,sometimes black worms (though i fear there can be problems with these unless they are constanly rinsed or bought from a reputable dealer).I allmost allways stayed away from beefheart just because of the extra or some getting into the gravel bed and causing fugus.It is a great food though and with the bare bottom tanks i now have i will probably start feeding it again. A couple of 20 gallon qaurintine tanks should be considered as treating large tanks with medication is very hard and mostly ineffective. I will also change water at 30-50 percent weekly,especially when feeding alot.
 
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Jungle anti parasite food contains metro.prazi and levamisole when sold in the US.

levamisole is available thru feed stores in rural areas. (US)other feed stores can order it.
Flubendazole is available thru veterinary there is an online fish supplier that can supply many meds not usually available..wish i could remember the place.
if you are treating for parasites..treat the main tank as eggs are probably cast off in the main tank. and other fish may have been infected.
 
discus nut

I am not sure. the site I visited listed meds in pdf.
I'll see if I can find it.
 
I'm happy to say that I treated my tank for the second time tonight and the discus seem to be acting better. Definitely still eating with much more swimming. Still need to move the flagfish to someone else's tank, but I think treating for parasites again is really making an impact. Thanks for the good advice.
 
Update!!!!

A combination of medication and trading in the flagfish to the LFS has made everyone more happy, me included. The discus no longer look "pinched" and their colors are starting to show. I'll get more pics up soon if anyone is interested....
 
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