Constipation, Fibre and Epsom Salt

[TimboS]

Hi All,

Two of my discus must be a bit constipated - they hunt down the food and go through the motions of pecking at it but don't seem to eat. Almost like they want and expect to eat but don't.

Last night I dosed with Epsom Salts and a few hours later the larger of the two fish passed a long thin, lightly coloured poo. It did not look unusual - same type of consistency as a normal poo but greyish/white with some dark bits. I don't suspect worms but rather a blockage of some sort since the diet is mostly fish fuel blocks and tetra bits, i.e. maybe not enough fibre.

Are there any suggestions on how to increase fibre in the discus diet without resorting to flake? (since my discus don't go near it).

Ta.

TimboS

[zar]

Tetra bits should contain enough fibre i thought. A lot of those things that you described also happen when fish have a hex infection. hex breakouts usually happen after fish have been stressed..

[ILLUSN]

if your making up your own food try adding some peas and spinich to it, blend it up first so its nice and soft before adding it to your beefheart mix.

[TimboS]

Currently, while still in the learning curve about such things as water chemistry and aquatic plants, I thought I would leave food to the "experts" (for the lack of a better word) and simply buy food rather than making it.

It may however be time to make a move for the kitchen. With all the mess I'll make, I am sure the mrs will not be happy !!

I've heard daphnia is good for cleaning fish out. Is there any truth to this?

[ILLUSN]

Cant say I've tried daphnia, but spirolina fed brine shrimp will help get things moving.

[samir]

they have internal parasites, most probably flagellates, thats when they just mouth food and spit it out.

[TimboS]

So its time for another round of Sterazin then?

[TimboS]

UPDATE: Last night while replanting some reeds I came across two blood red coloured stretchy worms in the roots - about 3/4cm long at most - almost like small leeches. I have NEVER seen this in my tank before or any other for that matter.

I have fed frozen bloodworm before, and fed live blackworm, and the first thought was that these are blackworm that have grown in the substrate but they are not, well, black. The last batch of live blackworm I fed earlier this year gave my fish worms and they needed a sterazin treatment then. The question is whether the same is needed now?

I have also been reading the results from a search on flagellates and came across some hits of epsom salt, sterazin, prazi and metro.

I have Sterazin ready to go but don't like using it since it takes 10 days and you can't do water changes in between. I normally do 33% every 3 days with aged water.

Could an (epsom) salt bath be used instead of Sterazin or Prazi? I wonder if that would kill whatever those red worms are...

I don't think the fish poo actually looks like worms, so I am not sure if I should go out and buy some "worm-rid" and try that.

Any thoughts?

Timbo

[ILLUSN]

Timbo, they are harmless, they're just scavengers taht move through the substrate, picking up decaying food and organic matter, they're proably doing great things for your plants and substrate.

metro will work on flagellets, prazi is useless, epson salts helps but i believe the concentraion has to be over 70ug/mL (70mg/L)

[TimboS]

Not having metro, or easy access to it, I started a Sterazin treatment last night. I have used it before a few times and each time it does the job well.

The only problem is going 10 days without a water change. My plan is to reduce the food by a good 50% per day so the nitrates don't go too high and the pH does not drop too much - given that my KH is only 2 or 3 degrees and this seems to reduce to 1 or 0 after 3 or 4 days. (Mind you, I have upped my Excel dosage so the plants do not try to pull the CO2 out of the KH as much).

However, do I need to strictly adhere to a no water change policy during Sterazin treatment I wonder. What if I did a 25% change half way through and put in a new amount (calculated accordingly) to replace that siphoned off?

Anyone know if the rules of Sterazin treatment are sufficiently flexible to allow this?

[ILLUSN]

When i use other water life products, if i need to do a water change i do one and just rplace the approriate ammount of drug removed (eg if I'm using protozin and do a 50% water change mid way through i add a double dose to make up for what was taken out). if have tetras in your tank and you do this there is a good chance they will die (dad wiped out my rummynose school with a double dose of protozin) sterizin might be milder, (i only use it to soak nets and other equiptment in).

[TimboS]

Righto - that means I will probably step my changes out to every 4 days so I only need do this twice during the treatment, and only go as far as 25% each time.

I do have about 5 neon tetra and 9 glowlight tetra in the tank and the neons have of late been dropping off one by one, but the glowlight soldier on. Thanks for letting me know what to expect though !

I've started feeding the spirolina brine shrimp now as well.

Come to think of it, the two discus that are off their food (but getting better) started out like that once I cleaned the cannister filter and accidently left the UV on instead of giving the tank a break for 3 days or so so the cannister could re-establish itself. Maybe a short lived ammonia spike is the culprit?

[ILLUSN]

That sounds like a very likely senario, ammonia does bad things to discus even at a small dose as i discovered when i used an ammonium based dry fert in planted discus tank :banghead :banghead :banghead

[TimboS]

Oh I bet the response was something along the lines of "bugger" and some other choice words. Wouldn't blame you !!

So, is it possible to tell a discus suffering from an ammonia spike versus one that has internal problems? Or, will the former simply create the latter and worming is the only way out?

[ILLUSN]

i believe taht all fish (esp discus) have some internal paracites in them, only when they are stressed do they become a problem, fix up the water quality first, then try the meds if you have to, alot of the time water quality problems go away ontheir own once the water is fixed up.