young discus lost his appetite

[Tab]

Hello, I have a red discus who has not been eating for a couple days. He also seems to be "depressed". He hangs at the back of the tank in the middle and does not socialize with tank mates like he used to. No visible signs of anything wrong with him other than behavior. He swims fine and moves around normally but will generally act like a wallflower unless approached. I have never seen the tank mates bullying him. Water is as such: ph is 6.6, nitrates 10 ppm, nitrite 0, hardness 65 ppm, chlorine 0, alkalinity is low. Dumb question: The instructions on our test kit show the same step to raise alkalinity and to raise ph ("use ph increaser"). How do we raise one and not the other??? Any help would be great! Thanks!

[ILLUSN]

you cant raise alklinity without raising ph, they are the same thing (high alkalinity, high ph, low alkalinity low ph)

whats your ammonia? what are you feeding him?

[JoeDiscus85]

Have you been able to look at its poo???

[Tab]

We feed them beefheart, dried tubiflex worms, peas, a little discus flake. Recently fed a homemade discus food which includes spinach, shrimp, catfish, crab, carrots, peas, banana, eggs and flake food all cooked and blended into a paste then frozen. Got this recipe from a book on discus care. I saw this fish trying to eat algae off one of the plants this morning but did not partake of the food I offered again.

Amonia-0

Have not seen poop. Sorry.

[Tab]

Got a look at his poop and it is clear w/white clumps.

[JoeDiscus85]

yup,internal parasites most likely..... There are so many good post on this could be hexamit commonly know as hole in the head disease or latteral line errosion, Metro is the med for this problem..


Joe

[Tab]

Yeah, we looked it up right after seeing the poop. It's separated in a hopital tank in meds....Thanks.