discus swimming nose down

[fish_r]

Hi guys
just noticed one of my discus is having to swim nose down to keep itself down, it looks like it is stuggling to keep from floating up. it is also a bit bloated and noticed it has a lump about halfway up its body just a a bit higher up from it's gut and back towards the tail. i'm thinking it's something to do with the swim blader ? but thats really a guess ? how do i treat it ? and what do u think is wrong ?
thx
Rob...
here's a pic if that helps...

[fish_r]

thx for all the help guys !
u cant tell me out of the 20 people that have looked at this thread, not one person could give me some advise...
dont worry urself i'll go and put it down now !
cheers
Rob.........................

[DiscusEden]

Oh, Rob, I'm sorry, but I have no idea. I looked at it, but thought no advice would be better than bad advice.

Could you leave it 'till morning & see if someone who knows something has any ideas?

Salt seems to be a popular remedy...

[fish_r]

nah no worries Carolyn
i'm sure a few didnt/dont know what to do, it just the ones that look and dont bother to help that piss me off.
i feel like i try to help where i can, but what happens when i need help....
i cant stand to see it struggle much longer so going to put it down...

[DiscusEden]

I'm sure you're doing the best you can for the poor fish. It's a pity, too, 'cos it looked so nice when it was healthier.

I guess that's why it's important for us all to support each other where we can?

[samir]

you may get some info here.
http://article.discusnews.com/cat-02/swimblader.shtml

what are you feeding it ?

[scott bowler]

im with samir swim bladder prob Rob , some times it just a bug and with the right treatment it will be ok and fix its self over time , but some times it may be a tare and it may not right its self and you fish my stay alive but it will never swim strate again , just nose down , if you read the site that samir gave you it has some good info hope it helps mate good luck with it scott

[Merrilyn]

thx for all the help guys !
u cant tell me out of the 20 people that have looked at this thread, not one person could give me some advise...
dont worry urself i'll go and put it down now !
cheers
Rob.........................

Phew, hang on a moment Rob, some of us hold down full time jobs, and we just can't be available 24 hours a day, much as we'd like to. You can't blame people for not offering an opinion if they don't know what they're looking at.

Heck, I've been keeping discus for 30 years, and the best I can offer you is an educated guess. I'm no vet, and I don't pretend ot be one, just an experienced keeper.

In my experience it appears to be a swim bladder problem. Lots of things can cause this, but the most frequent cause is a build up of gas caused eitgher by fermenting food in the gut, or a bacterial problem. It often cures itself. I'm very much in favour of taking the soft approach first, and if that doesn't help, then bring on the antibiotics.

So my advice is to begin with epsom salts. You can get this from the supermarket. Dose rate is one heap teaspoon in 40 litres of water. It will act as a laxative, and help to move along any fermenting food. You should see results in 24 hours. The fish should pass rather large droppings, pass wind, and gradually swim in a more normal manner.

Now if that doesn't help, then we can assume that it's bacterial. In which case you need to begin treating with metro, flagyl or octazin. Metro or flagyl is used at the rate of 250mg per 40 litres of tank water, and re treat in 24 hours, after a 50% water change. With Waterlife Sterazin, just follow the directions on the bottle.

Good luck.

Remember to support the fish with very clean water and warm temperature, up to 32 degrees. When the swelling comes up quickly, it can down just as quickly.

[fish_r]

sorry for the winge i had earlier, i'm feeling a bit sorry for myself @ the moment as i'm pretty crook and hate to see my fish sick too and was very distressed at seeing so many views and not one reply to try help my sick fish
thx to those of u that have chipped in since and given me some advise i havnt put it down yet so will give the epson salts a go tomorrow when i can get someone to go out and get me some.
thx again
Rob
and sorry again for my outburst... :oops:

P.S. "Samir" it's last feed was "kongs" frozen bloodworm i went to my lfs today and they said Kongs arnt a very good quality bloodworm, so maybe it has something to do with that ?
gonna go back to Hikari i think.
i feed a very varied diet though, Hikari brine,posaqua discus deluxe "but that too has changed formulation now too" ,discus dinner,and bloodworm + a few different kinds of flake and thera +A

[helenuk]

Sorry i cannot offer any help here as such. I had two discus die with the same symptoms as yours and looked just like that. We could not pin point the problem at first but in the end we put it down to some blood worm we had fed that may well have been infected with an internal parasite so we chucked the lot out in case then treated the tank with Octozin all was well again after that and touch wood we have not had any more go down with it.

[Miracoli]

I've had two cases that looked like that.

The first was a juvenile blue turk. that had apparently gotten too much granule food the day before. I got up in the morning and he was swimming nose down, paddling like crazy. I quarantined him and raised the temperature up to 33C. He laid down on the filter in the aquarium and spent most of the morning there - I thought I would lose him. By 14.00, he had pooped loads and loads :shock: and was upright again. I returned him to the tank in the evening and he was all back to his rambunctious self.

The second case was a very small blue diamond (which also had some growth issues). His belly bloated like that within about two hours. I tried quarantine as in the above case, but he died about two hours later. Autopsy revealed a break in the intestine (which generally kills a fish within hours).

Hoping the best for your fish :(

[fish_r]

thx for the replies guys at least i'll know what to do now if it happens again, but i'm happy to say i got home from work today with epson salts in hand ready to start the treatment, and looked in the tank and the little bugger has fixed itself, must of had an almighty poo and cleared itself out :) will keep an eye on it and going to worm again with prazi tonight. it's hanging around the top now waiting to be fed so all's looking good for now :)
hmmm i was panicking for nothing by the looks, i'll have to learn to control myself lol... and so lucky i didnt put it down after all :roll:
thx
Rob...

[DiscusEden]

That's great news Rob, I'm so very pleased for you and your fish!

[scott bowler]

hehe thats good Rob he just had wind lol needed a good fart hehe good to hear just keep a eye on him scott

[DiscusEden]

Fish must be male. Big fuss about a fart.

[fish_r]

lol thx guys :)

[helenuk]

:D Great news i am so pleased :D I will remember this if it ever happens to one of mine again :wink:

[samir]

imo don't feed bloodworms. ever since i've stopped there's been no bloating whatsoever.

[fish_r]

i am going to throw the 3pkts of kongs bloodworms away
but i just got given 6pkts of Hikari bloodworms, so going to have to use them up in the other tanks i think cause i cant bring myself to throwing all of them away :(
also got some frozen Daphnia today as a bit of a treat every week or so, are they ok to feed ? i know bugger all about em ? but advised there good about once a week for discus to clean em out ? until i can make another batch of my frozen food, i want to give as much of a variety as i can...
thx
Rob...

[samir]

i was a die hard fan of bloodworms. I read in quite a few of Andrew Soh's posts that they spread all sorts of parasites. I didn't believe that because they gamma ray them and clean them etc etc.
After doing a lot of experiments with my fry and my new microscope attachment :roll: , I'm 99% convinced that they definitely carry gill fluke cysts(eggs?) even if they are zapped with gamma rays or triple/quadruple cleaned. Hence I will never feed bloodworms again.

[fish_r]

ok thx for the advise Samir, i will phaze em out then and when this lot is gone i wont buy/except any more.
hoping to make a beef heart mix again soon, so will start feeding em on that instead. least i can put what i want in that :)
i stopped feeding live blackworms for the same reason a long time ago too.
what about the frozen Daphnia ? is that ok ?
i want to give a bit of variety...
cheers
Rob...

[helenuk]

Now that is interesting about the bloodworm. When i lost my two discus with this condition i was also feeding lots of frozen bloodworm at the time. I don't feed it at all now apart from a small amount of freeze dried on occasions. Had no more discus with the condition since then. Thanks for that info :wink:

[discus lover01]

Hi i have just seen this post and 99% of the time it's a swim bladder problem that causes this or an internal intestine problem as above as to the feeding of frozen bloodworms i use them and will use them as youy may find these gill fluke eggs if thats what they are but there is no way that they will hatch after going through the sterilisation process and these cant hurt the fish and the gill fluke thats in most fish are there all the time.