Still Flicking :(

[Erk]

I treated with praziPRO a couple weeks ago....with the repeat in a week....then just this week, I treated with Big L, and plan to do it again in a week, and make sure the lights stay off for 24 hours this time

3 out of 4 of my guys are flicking themselves on my decor, and more or less "digging" in my substrate with their mouths and "forehead" area. The two skinny fins that hang from below their bellies are always twitching, and they seem to breathe hard, and almost look like they are choking from time to time. I have gotten used to seeing this behavior in my small pigeon, and occasionally in my ocean green, but now my big pigeon is doing it too :(

I did a 75% water change last, as it was three days after dosing the Big L

I just dont know what to do anymore :? The plants dont grow, and it always seems like something is wrong with my discus.

I would really like to look at a bigger tank, to give them more room, and see if I can make them happier, but I dont think I have the money or the room for a bigger tank. :(

Any advice would be great

Thanks
Eric

[fish_r]

sounds like theyv'e got ich Eric, but i'm by by no means an expert in diseases, maybe u could try protozin and c if that does any good ? but i wouldn't do it while ur treating ur other meds.
as for ur plants m8, u need to give them a chance to settle as uv'e been making lots of adjustments lately to ur Co2 etc. when u get ur reg running right, try set it @ a bubble rate and leave it. and if u can pi$$ that airstone off. since i got rid of my airstones my plants growth is going really well and my algae growth has settled too.
but i have a good ripple on the top of the water from 2 x cannisters and the inline pump running my reactor.
which seems to help with o2
also have u put "good" plant tabs in lately ? some thing else thats giving me great results is just putting in about 25 plants tabs all through my substrate.

hang in there m8, it will come good in time, it's not from lack of effort cause ur always working on something from what i can see lol...

[Erk]

Thanks Rob...I didnt think discus could get ich at these higher temps....I did my 75% water change last night, and bumped the temp back up to about 87F (30C) I would need to get protozin....dont have that laying around. They dont seem to show any white spots or anything on their bodies :?

I will turn the airstone off, when the new selanoid arrives, and see how that goes. I have a good bit of o2 exchange with the new surface skimmer, so I think I will be fine....I would like to get the reactor under control and run it the same way you have yours setup, but Ive been having some issues finding the strainer that goes in the tank? I actually unhooked it last night. I cleaned all my filters (in tank water) since I was treating with Big L, and of course I couldnt get the filter started again afterwards :roll:

I have just recently put in ten new seachem plant tabs

Im trying to hang in here....rather discouraged lately :( I would love a bigger tank...I think I would be better with that, and the discus would be happier. I certainly do TRY to do what I can for these guys...they just dont seem to wanna work with me

Thanks for your help! :)
Eric

[Greggy]

Hi Erk,

No offence, but I actually think your 'mothering' your tank too much!

Its funny, but I've seen it many times where low-tech tanks that are almost ignored seem to flourish, whilst high-tech tanks that get huge amounts of attention including daily water changes, water checks, CO2 injection, fancy lighting and all the medications, tonics and fertilizers in the world just don't seem to run right. I put this down to various important aspects of an aquarium not being in proper balance with one another, as whenever you increase one thing (e.g. CO2) you also need to adjust other related things (e.g. more light and fertilizer).

From your signature it appears as though you have a perfect setup, all you water parameters etc seems spot on, but sometimes plants don't like living in water that is 87F (30C) and you may find lowering your temp to approx 83F (28C) will suddenly make your plants go crazy! I used to run my tank at 30C but noticed the plants would just 'exist' without growing much at all, but lowering the temp to 28C really made a difference to their health. The plants in my low-tech 6x2x2 are now going crazy, every two weeks I throw out large amounts of Water Sprite and I have so much Ambulia I don't know where to plant it, so I throw it away! This is with no CO2 and an air stone that I leave on 24/7 - I really would not want the plants to grow any faster as I would be a slave keeping them under control! Crazy but true!!!!! You may remember that my water is also alkaline (my pH is usually somewhere between 7.4-7.6 and sometimes even higher) due to the hard tap water in my area but the fish & plants don't seem to mind at all. I have some issues with water clarity because dosing with fertilizer seems to precipitate out in the very hard water but its usually clear a few days before the next water change so I get about 2 crystal clear days per week out of my tank and the rest are a little hazy :(

My tank has had its fair share of problems, but since my 'disaster' a few months back (caused by me) my 9 Discus and their tank mates have really settled down and once they are happy I think its safe to keep them at 28C instead of 30C They are growing, eating and looking great so what more can I ask for? Yes it's a great feeling when everything comes together and 'works', so don't give up, as I think you just have not yet found the right combination for your particular setup.

Yes larger tanks can be easier (think of them as more forgiving of our mistakes) but I think it would serve you well to stay with your existing setup and start adjusting certain parameters of your tank one at a time and see what difference it makes. If things improve adjust something else and so on. If things get worse, adjust it back to how it was and move onto the next variable that you can control.

Now I'm just guessing but I think you need to firstly cure the cause of the flicking once and for all (Gill flukes?) then:

- Medicate less
- More light
- More fertilizer (maybe)
- Less CO2
- More O2 (maybe)
- Less water changes **
- and finally.... RELAX!

** Note: I think (heavily) planted aquariums do better with smaller semi-frequent water changes instead of large & frequent water changes. I 'only' change 20% of my water once per week and I still struggle to get NO3 readings as the plants are just gobbling everything up! Large frequent water changes may be good in a bare bottom tank but I think they do more harm than good in planted tanks like ours.

So please keep us posted... I've always been interested in your posts about your tank, as you seem to be genuinely interested in aquariums and I know you really care about your Discus.

Good luck Erk!

Regards,

Greggy

[Erk]

Thanks very much Greggy :D

No offense taken at all...I actually hear the "mothering" term used to describe me and my maintenance routine.

I always look at it, like ima do something, I wanna do it right, and I see all these BEAUTIFUL tank pics on here, and I wanna get it right.

I agree....I have had to do a lot of maintenance, and some switchy changy on some things lately, and somewhere thrown in the mix was the dosing of the prazi, and the big L...then my selanoid broke :( I did the large water change last night, cause it was the three days after dosing the Big L, so I thought a bigger one would be better, and I cleaned all the filters in my tank water.

I had my tank temp down to 84 for about 2 weeks, and then I dosed the Big L, and the light didnt stay off for 24 hours like it was supposed to. So i was gonna wait about a week, and do it again, and make sure the light stays off this time. But since they are still flicking, I turned the temp back up. I would like to lower it again eventually


Now I'm just guessing but I think you need to firstly cure the cause of the flicking once and for all (Gill flukes?) then:

Yes, my plan was to dose the Big L (which I did) then dose it again in a week and do it correctly this time, then dose again in two weeks...dunno when I would get prazi in there again? I guess I need to raise my dose of that too, cause they dont seem to stop flicking from the treatments, and I was pretty careful with my dosing amount...I didnt wanna get the "resistant" bugs :?

I always seem to have higher NO3 then I would like, and Im having the lady feed them now...I think she is better with portion control, so hopefully that will help. The plants dont seem to soak them up well :(


So please keep us posted... I've always been interested in your posts about your tank, as you seem to be genuinely interested in aquariums and I know you really care about your Discus.

Thanks for your input..I do appreciate it...I will try to relax with things, and hope for the best....I do care about these guys, and I think I get more concerned about them then I would with other fish, just cause of all the things Ive read

Thanks again :D
Eric[/quote]

[Greggy]

Well if I'm good enough to have a tank that looks like this anyone can do it!!!

[fishgeek]

flicking would make me suspect external parasites or water quality most commonly

dont know that levamisol is going to be useful there
maybe rethink your diagnosis

or prehaps i missed something in those long posts

andrew

[Erk]

Thanks Greggy....your tank, plants and fish look great! They do look happy and healthy to me as well!


flicking would make me suspect external parasites or water quality most commonly

dont know that levamisol is going to be useful there
maybe rethink your diagnosis

or prehaps i missed something in those long posts

andrew

Thanks andrew, I did treat with prazi twice in the past...maybe 2-3 weeks ago, and they have been flicking on and off since then. Then about 3 weeks after the prazi treatment for the flicking, I moved on to the treatment with Big L, for worms, and I just finished that treatment thursday. didnt do the follow up treatment yet, and the fish still flick.

I feel my water quality is good....I do water changes all the time :shock: with reconstituted RO water, using Kent RO right, and Kent Discus essentials.

Im just going to try to work on making the co2 stable with the new selanoid here, and cut back a lil on feeding, and just watch them to see how they do.

Thanks everyone very much :)
Eric

[Erk]

Ok, so I worked on getting everything "relaxed" this week....temp is down to 84, no meds in about 2 weeks, co2 is steady at about 2bps using the rhinox5000. Did a water change last night, and all of my fish are flicking, the small pigeon is going crazy! :shock: He flicks himself against my co2 tubing going to the diffuser, which is against the side wall, and then behind that in the back left corner is the filter intake for the xp1, and I saw him flick there, and just bang right into the intake tube, then he moves to the banana plant leaf, and just goes from one thing to the next to flick himself sideways on.

I saw him "coughing" or "choking" on nothing for a good amount of time, and he was doing it loud enough that I could hear a "clicking" sound in rythm with his "choking" patterns, with the lid on the tank closed :shock:

I want to treat with prazi, but I guess unfortunately, it needs to be a bigger dose then what is recommended? Since Ive already treated with prazi twice, and it didnt appear to work :(

Do I have to do a water change before dosing with prazi, or can I just add it to the tank, and what is the recommended dosage now??

Thanks very much
Eric

[Erk]

Oh and when he isnt flicking on anything, he just hangs in the front left corner on a downward angle, and they all seem to be breathing heavy with a temp of 84??

Thanks again

[Erk]

Here is my thread from back towards the end of june, when I first treated with prazi

http://www.discusforums.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=12724

Thanks

[Greggy]

Hi Erk,

Something is definitely annoying your Dicus, as flicking that much against objects in your tank, and the rapid breathing suggests something is not right. Try reducing the amount of CO2 by half and see if the breathing improves. As for the flicking, I would say you have either gill flukes, or perhaps white spot. If you've treated with Prazi a few times at the correct dosage you have probably dealt with flukes, but white spot (Ich) could also cause your fish to flick and white spot just loves hiding in the gills!

So, I would actually shut down your CO2 system, raise the temp back up to about 30C, run an air stone 24/7 and begin treating for white spot with one of those rapid-cure medications containing Formalin (and also possibly Malachite Green). Some people will tell you to use salt instead of harsher chemicals but I've found that the Formalin treatments are quite harmless to the biological filter and formalin is deadly to Ich during its 'swarmer' (tomite) phase. About 10 days in a row treating with formalin should do the trick with the temp at not less than 30C, doing a 25% water change just before each treatment but you will need to make sure the water your adding is also at 30C because if you use (cold) tap water the temp will drop down below 30C in the tank again and the Ich will probably survive.

Don't worry about your plants they will cope, but if you use salt they might not, so consider removing them to a fishless tank for 2 weeks (also at 30C) to ensure the Ich is killed off.

I'm not saying you have Ich, but you might and as such you need to knock it out in case its present, otherwise your fish might continue flicking and getting more gill damage.

After treatment is finished reduce the temp back to 28C and continue with your normal water changes, and a week later turn on your CO2 system but I would keep it at a very low rate until you know your Discus have gotten over their breathing problems.

Good luck!

Regards,

Greggy

[Erk]

Thanks very much Greggy....I will hit the LFS today, and see what meds they have there for ich

The problem is the water changes....I use reconstituted RO water, so Im not sure how I will be able to get enough water to do the water changes like you say, during treatment?

I did turn the co2 back down a lil bit last night, to see if that helped.

I dont see any "spots" on them, anywhere

They certainly do seem better with the temp higher then 84 :(

Thanks very much :)
Eric

[Erk]

Since a bigger tank prolly isnt gonna happen, would a UV sterilizer be an extra smart decision, to prevent things from happening over and over again in this smaller tank, until a ways down the road I can get a bigger tank?

What would be recommended? It would go inline on my rena xp3...I think its 350gph

Thanks very much

[Erk]

The only thing I can really think of as to why they would still be getting messed up is, when I do my water changes, I prepare my new water the same way....all the time.

But when I do my water changes after the lights and co2 have been on for a while, the pH drops, like normally a few points...never reallly checked what the pH was, but my new water is reconstituted to about a pH of 7.0, like it is when the co2 is off, but if its been on for say 6 hours, then its not a 7, but 6.something...is this enough to mess them up, if it is done like that continually?

My updated tank parameters are:

ammonia=0
nitrite=0
nitrate=10-20 (plants) raised with KNO3
pH=7.0
phosphate=3 (plants) raised with KH2PO4
no test kit for potassium or iron, but I dont add much of either
kH=4
gH=5 (Kent RO Right, and Kent Discus Essentials)

Thanks

[Erk]

I was looking at the coralife turbo twists.....my LFS carries them too...so I could grab one today while im there for the ich meds

I guess the 18watt, would prolly be ok? Will this mess up my filter, like the reactor did?

Thanks

[Erk]

Ive picked up two things today

http://www.thatpetplace.com/pet/prod/214362/i/1/product.web

and

http://www.thatpetplace.com/pet/prod/211585/i/1/product.web

Im running RO water now, and hopefully will have enough of it, and have it hot enough that I can get started with treatments tomorrow

Any suggestions or comments on the product I got?

Thanks very much :D

[Erk]

Also the CO2 has been shut off...again :wink:

Hopefully I can get them fixed up, and move on.

Im going to work on bringing the temp up now

Thanks

[Greggy]

Keep us posted on your progress!

[Erk]

Thanks Greggy....will do

Im hoping to get the temp up today, and do a water change, and then start my treatment

[Erk]

I have the temp up to 30C (or more when lights are on) Ive done two doses of the Ich treatment, with a 33% water change before each dose (24 hours apart)

It seems to be going ok....however, they never really showed any white spots on them before treatment....they didnt seem to get "upset" when I dose the meds. The flicking is still present, so I will continue treatment.

The bottle says to continue treatment for three days after the last "white spot" is gone, so I guess I will continue treatment, and watch for the flicking and "odd" behavior to stop, and then treat for three days, and hopefully everything will be good to go.

I will keep you guys updated.

Thanks :)

[Greggy]

Hi Erk,

I think its best to keep the temp at no less than 30C and treat as per the recommended dose rates, but treat for 14 days. The Ich life cycle is such that the meds are only effective during the 'swamer' phase and the temp at 30C will bring this phase around every 3 or 4 days. Treating for 14 days will ensure to not only make reproductive life uneasy for the Ich, but also exposes it to the meds more often. After 14 days or so you should be Ich free!

Sometimes Ich can almost be invisible to our eyes, especially fish that have built up a sort of tolerance to it. It can live in the gills (one of its favourite hiding places) and thus cause flicking without the usual 'salt sprinkle' effect that we normally associate with Ich infections.

So keep temp up, the CO2 off, airstone(s) on 24/7 and medicate as suggested all the time watching your fish and keeping an eye on NH3 and NO2 levels just in case. Like I said formalin is basically harmless at these dose rates to filters, fish and plants but Ich certainly doesn't like it.

Regards,

Greggy

[Erk]

Thanks Greggy :)

Thats an excellent response! Im done with day 3 of treatment.....temp is steady at 30C even during my water changes as I heat my storage bin up to 33C, and it only drops a few degrees during the water change. CO2 is off, and airstone is on 24/7. They seem to take the treatments well...I still see some flicking and shaking and odd behavior, but nothing major.

I will check the NH3 and NO2 when I get home from work today

Thanks again :D

[Erk]

Never had any spikes of ammonia or nitrites

Today will be day 11 of treatment, and they seem a lil more active...the ocean and the big pigeon have been fighting a good bit the last few days, and they dont seem to wanna get outta my way when I go to do my water changes, before treatments....they are always hungry, but I still have some flicking, and "choking" and they will just get all messed up and go flying around the tank for a few seconds then calm back down

Its a shame, but hopefully since Im near the end of treatment, they will come around soon, and stop with this odd behavior

I will leave co2 off for a week after my 14th day of treatment

Thanks :)
Eric

[Erk]

Just dosed my 14th day of this stuff.....finally! :D Lets see how things go from here....CO2 is still off, and airstone is on 24/7 and I will leave it like that for the next week

Do I need to do a water change tomorrow or anything, to remove the meds? Or can I let it dissipate on its own?

Thanks very much
Eric

[Greggy]

I would do a water change.

How are the fish? Once the formalin clears they should breathe easier, and hopefully no more flicking.

Regards,

Greggy

[Erk]

Thanks Greggy....they seem ok, I have noticed them breathing much slower lately, but they still flick on stuff...hopefully that will stop over the next week

I have to run water now :( I was hoping I was done...lol!

Thanks again
Eric

[Erk]

I saw the ocean and the small pigeon flick themselves on my plants, heater, and substrate last night :cry: I dunno what to do anymore...I havent messed with anything other then water changes.

I still have co2 off, temp up, and airstone on :?:

I didnt even have my hands in the tank, since wednesday night when I did my normal water change.

The only thing my lady came up with, is, that the hose I use for the mag drive pump to fill the tank back up after my water change...kinda look like the tubes for the cannister filter....kinda brown gunky stuff here and there...like maybe mold? What do you guys do when this starts to happen? Get new tubing? Is that enough to make them constantly do this dumb %&#(*$&#*??

Thanks!

[Greggy]

I doubt the tubing is the problem... Occasional flicking is normal, remember if their gills have been damaged by parasites it may take a month or two for them to come good. If you have followed the white spot treatment corectly at leat you can rule this out. You may still have gill a fluke problem but Prazi will sort you out and it would be my next choice of action.

Keep your chin up Erk, your getting closer to the end of your problems I assure you! I bet your fish are going just fine at them moment... yes?

Regards,

Greggy

[Erk]

Thanks Greggy

Yes they seem ok, besides the occasional flicking, and my turk/snakeskin looks kinda dark and likes to hang near the intake tube, or behind the driftwood...kinda on his side against the back wall...he was out to eat this morning, so I hope he is ok.

I figured it would take a lil time for things to work themselves out, but all week, they seemed fine, and then I saw that last night :(

I was hoping to turn the co2 back on and airstone off this weekend sometime? When can I start to turn the temp down some? Or should I only do one at a time? Im trying to do everything slowly and carefully this time...or am I going to have to wait for co2 until after another round of Prazi? When should I start that?

Thanks again...I hope Im close to the end like you say :D

[Erk]

Thanks very much everyone for all your help! I guess the Ich treatment was effective! It seems as tho my big pigeon wants to lay eggs! She is sliding her belly area up the right side wall nice and slowly. Im going to try to snap some pics today after work! I feel much better now about how things are going

Thanks!