My Discus has a CUT!

H

Hungriee

AC Members
Jan 24, 2008
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NYC
I got my two new red diamond discus (3") on Monday and today I noticed the male has a cut on the side of this body. His neon blue coloring is no longer as blue; so he's probably a little stressed. I did a quick water change and took out all the OTO Cats since I'm thinking it was them who was sucking on the discus slime.

How can I accelerate the discus healing? I usually use the salt method for all other fish, but i"m afraid discus will hate the salinity.
 
lots of clean water= daily water changes.
 
Quarantine him and add salt to the water doing daily water changes will do the best stay away from meds unless the problem gets worse.

I agree I doubt it would have been the oto's
 
I agree with lots of fresh water changes. And for me it would depend on the size and look of the cut. If it's minor, lots of water changes and possibly some salt. If it's bigger, then I think I would opt for antibiotics. External infections usually happen very rapidly, so if it's worse in 24 hours, get the antibiotics in the water. Also, very very rarely does an otto suck on slime coat. I had 3 in my discus tank and saw round marks in the slime coat, waited to I saw the bugger that was doing it and pulled him out of the tank and he went into a non-discus tank. The other 2 have never touched the discus. You can tell if a sucker mouth fish has been on the discus by looking at their slime coat under the tank lights. You'll see an area that's been swirled a bit, kinda like a polishing buffer....but it does not go into the skin, just takes a bit of protective slime coat off.
 
Aside from my mag float I don't have any other items in teh tank except for sunset hydros. I'm not sure if plants could have cut the discus; or would it be maybe the filter tubes from my canister?
 
could have happened in shipping

new right?
 
The discus could have also been spooked, especially being in a new tank/environment and done some crazy darting/gravel scraping and injured himself. They do the "ping pong" kinda thing when scared or startled and you hold your breath until the stop, hoping all the while they're not scraping themselves up too bad.
 
I say no QT yet. Wait until there are sure signs of secondary infection. Definitely use salt. In this case Melafix, Pimafix, or Methylene Blue can be an option. I regularly use Methylene Blue with my Discus.

One of my Discus cut his eye and I left him in the tank with a little Methylene Blue and he recovered great.
 
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