Headstanding discus

[nicholas76]

Hi guys,

lady red I had experienced this with friends fishes before on two occasions.


1. with the first fish we dislodged it by doing what i said above manipulating the bump carefully and it worked its way out like gass. We couldnt believe our eyes when it virtually disappeared.

2. with the second fish step one didnt work. It was almost dead so we knocked it on the head and did an examination. We found it to be a lump full of fluid,: tumor.



just my ten cents

[wyldchyld01]

fish can get and i'm sure ladyred would have seen this with her bettas, co2 bubbles in their bodies, more often than not it shows in their fins but maybe it could be under the scales as well,

nicholas76 your first experience suggests this to me, the second well yeah tumour or something else,

i'd try and feel the lump as suggested, if you really love it you could try lancing it with a fine needle and treat with antiseptics

Brenton

[Trebs]

I just had him out then. The lump is soft and movable. I gently rubbed it from on side to see if it was mobile front to back, the lump stayed put.

How is the best way to massage the lumps? Do I work it up, down, toward the front or back?

[Trebs]

Quick update,

My girlfriend took the male blue diamond to a vet in waterloo this afternoon. Under the microscope it was found to have a severe infestation of gill flukes. He also gave it a direct injection of antibiotics for the lomp which is believed to be a bacterial infection.

I'm going to treat with praziquantel for the next week and see how it goes.

The vet bill was $130.

[Merrilyn]

Thanks for that update Trebs. Did he say the lump could cause the head standing. I hope his diagnosis is correct, and your fish recovers with the antibiotics.

Treat the female for gill flukes, as no doubt, she will be infected too.

[Trebs]

Male is doing better after injection and first prazi treatment. Headstanding is now chin standing. He has started eating again. I'll post the regime and diagnosis described by the vet when I have a few minutes.

[Merrilyn]

So glad to hear things are improving. Looking forward to your post.

[Trebs]

Here is a pic. It's a pretty bad photo but you can kind of see the lump.

[Merrilyn]

Trebs is he still doing this, or has he improved now.

[Trebs]

The pic was taken last night. He had improved after the vet. He's still eating but the headstanding is back to where it was before.

The vet gave my girlfriend some flagyl and some panacur. These are supposed to fix the lump. He said not to use these until treating for gill flukes with prazi' tablets four times at weekly intervals (I did the second treatment on Sunday, I'm also using a fair amount of salt). From what I can gather he thinks the flukes are a bigger problem - I don't think I agree with that but at this stage I'll do what he perscribed. I'm not really hopeful at this stage. If the lump has been caused by internal parasites I think too much damage will have been done by the time I can treat. By the end of the flukes treatment it will be over two months.