discus rehab project

Sploke

Sploke

resident boozehound
Staff member
Oct 20, 2005
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South Windsor, CT
Real Name
Matt
Ok, so I'm at my LFS yesterday and I hear the owner say to someone, no you can't have those, those are discus. I quietly wander over and check out the tank, then ask her about them. I guess she bought like 7 small discus for her home tank, and 4 of them weren't eating. She told me I could take them home and try to get them healthy again, and if they died, I wouldn't have to pay her for them (she was pretty sure they're not going to make it).

So anyway, I have 4 discus, each about 2" long. I have them set up in a 10gal tank right now, just because its all I had ready. I was going to put them into my 30, but two of them have some sort of peeling-skin thing going on and I didn't want to kill all my other fish off, so this is the only place to QT them right now. Its a sand substrate, wishing I had just left it barebottom, but I'll deal. I'm going to be doing probably 20% changes every day. I've tried feeding some frozen mysis shrimp, they didn't seem too interested. The person who gave them to me said she had ttried them on frozen bloodworms and frozen brine shrimp as well, with no success.

The tank is at 80*, water is good and relatively soft. I've heard that salt is a good first line of defense for sick discus...how much should I add? Any advice at this point is more tham welcome. I'd really like to get these guys healthy and move them into a nice 55 setup.
 
hey matt. Congrats on the discus. You might want to check it, but I think discus like it a little warmer, say 82-4*. Water quality is very important to them, especially at this piont. While I cant advise on how much salt to use, the heavy water changes are a really good idea, mabey even more than 20%. Do you know what color morphs you have?
 
Two of them are yellow with orange striations, and two of them are a very dark green, almost black, with pinkish-red tails. I'm a little colorblind so I might be way off :huh:
 
Hi Sploke,

I have been thinking of setting up a Diacus tank but having no hands-on experience of them went hunting for good advice. I found this website which is excellent with lots of articles and a dedicated Discus forum The guys there are really friendly and experts to boot. Hope it is of some help to you and the best of luck with your poorly fishes.

http://www.discusnews.com/
 
Cool, thanks for the link. I also just joined www.simplydiscus.com, looks like they have a lot of good info there as well.
 
good luck
I hope to someday get set up with discus too.

I know frequent water changes are important.
as they do best with clean water
 
How are the fishes doing?

The maximum ammount of salt to add is 7.5 tablespoons to each 10 gallons USA / 40 liters of water of non-iodised (ie not table salt) for each gallon of water added very slowly with a 50% salted water change each day for 3 days. (According to DPH Discus forum)

There is an article on the use of salt here

I have just got some new Rams and am quarantining & treating them for flukes/parasites (I have found over the years that all new Rams introduce parasites into the aquarium). The treatment I am trying is new to me but comes highly recommended by several aquarists. Called Kusuri-Parazoryne, is broad spectrum, biodegradable, does not affect biofilter and safe for delicate fish. They have only been treated for 2 days at this stage but show no signs of distress (being sensitive fish they often react badly to chemical treatments). If this is available locally you may like to try it if salt does not do the trick. Details of it here
 
I've added 2 tbsp of salt (10 gal tank) to try and get them healthy. One of the darker ones was actually showing a lot better color...he was lighter green and you could make out some striations in the coloring. The smaller green one is still really dark colored. The two yellow ones are looking pretty good, athough I threw in some more mysis this morning and none of them seemed to go for it. The bigger green one has some cloud in his eyes, and both green ones have what looks like peeling skin.

I'm going to get them out of that 10gal ASAP. I've got one of my corn snakes in a 35gal aquarium, I think I'm going to move her out and into the 15 gal, and put the discus in there (after cleaning it out super well anyway). Just waiting on a new heater in the mail. I'm going to keep it bare-bottom, so hopefully these guys will start to perk up in the next few days.
 
you might want to run the corn snake tank with water and check for amonia befor you put the fish into it. the reptile poo can get onto the silicone and be hard to remove. when you go to use the tank for fish that amonia gets into the water. Not something you want to put a sick fish through.
 
I would suggest that you Google the phrase "discus plague" and then read every article that shows up. I have dealt with this disease in the past and it can be quite a challenge. Higher temps, lower pH, antibiotics, and a careful daily maintenance regimen are generally required. Also, turn the lights in the tank off, because fish that are infected are generally very sensitive to light and easily spooked as well.
 
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