Discus Refuses to Eat

[RKeen]

Im having trouble with one of my Discus atm. She ( i think) is the dominant female in what i believe is a group of 4 female fish. About 3 weeks ago now she stopped eating

200L
PH 6.0ish
Temp 27
Amonia Nitrate Nitrite all 0
4 Discus with 6 cardinals + rummynose few bronze corys and 6 peppys

The only reason I could think for her to stop eating was the temperature was a bit low and she was off or some black worms i gave her might have been a bit dodgy, she eats the most so id expect her to show any effects if they were a little off. I decided 4 days after seeing her refuse fresh black worms, frozen blood worms, beef heart and watching here excrete white poo that she needed treatment. I treated the planted tank with BIG L she passed alot more poo but most of it was white yellow or very very pale brown/green. Then 4 days later still no signs of recovery. I have since moved her into a Hospital tank increased the temp to 29, pH 6. I then treated her with aquarium salt, again no real recovery more white poo with slight yellow inside. I then spoke to the LFS who gave me some DMZ to try, I have been dosing her with that for the last week or so and still she wont eat! She really doesnt look like a sick discus and isnt really wasting yet. The only thing i have noticed is in the bare bottom hospital tank she scoots along the bottom a fair bit and sometimes twitches her body.

Any advice what to do next would be greatly appreciated
Ryan

[ILLUSN]

with BIG L she passed alot more poo but most of it was white yellow or very very pale brown/green

This is normal following treatment, its a mixture of stomach lining and mucus.

you have some kind of internal paracite problem, i'd treat with prazi as per directions on the bottle do the first treatment then 24hrs later a water change, i'm assuming DMZ is dimetrozole, this will work but needs to be dosed correctly, IME 2x the dose on the bottle(octozin) is the minimum, 3x seems much more effective,

that treatment sould take 72hrs to dose and then another 2 days to finish up, keep lights off during this time. once done do a massive water change, as much as you can.

once you finish the treatment with dimetrozole repeat the prazi treatment (should be day 7 from initial prazi dose) and then you should be due for another levimenisole treatment (you can wait for a day or 2 to give the fish a little rest).

i'd give a 3rd dose of levimenisole in another 2 weeks, capilira worms are a massive pain to get rid of.

this treatment is expensive and intensive, but it "should" cover round worms, flat worms and flagellets thoat should have all your internal paracites covered.

The darting worries me, in my tanks its usually a permenant neurological disorder, fish are fine for months then start again for no reason, i havn't yet been able to find a trigger.

[TW]

Ryan

I can't add to ILLUSN's advice. It's excellent & I hope it does the trick for you & your discus.

I was just wondering if you are in Aus or the States? If Aus, where did you find the dimetrozole? Hope you don't mind me asking.

[RKeen]

Thanks TW and ILLUSN

Yeah the DMZ is Dimetrozole it was written Dimetrozinole i think on the tub they gave it to me in ( not at home at the moment to check). I Got the DMZ in Perth from a LFS who uses it on Angels for similiar problems. It was in powder form and I was told 1 heaped tablespoon per 200L, I didnt know about the light affecting it and had the lights on while i treated it. My second treatment of that started yesterday at 2 1/2 heaped tablespoons per 200L. The light was initially on for about 4 hours while treating so I guess i should start again on that one. My main concern is if this treatment last another 3 weeks that will be 5 weeks without any food.

So Prazi first 24 hours
then DMZ 72 hour dose then 2 days keeping lights off
then prazi again
then into Levamisole again
with a follow up levamisole in 2 weeks

have i got that right?

thanks in advance again

[ILLUSN]

thats it i know its alot of work but to be honest I've got no idea whats made your fish sick except its an internal infestation, so you'll have to do the blanket treatment.

[swingn]

Go Illusn :D

Great work mate!

[RKeen]

Just a quick update

the DMZ stage of treatment is almost complete, still no eating unfortunately

What i have noticed after watching her alot closer is that she seems almost blind. She cant tell where the glass is and continually swims slowly into it and bangs her head then turns, swims along most of the time with her fins scooting along the bottom, she doesnt get phased by the net in her face or my hand right next to her, usually she would be startled or at least show disapproval. Her eyes are definitely not cloudy? Surely if she was blind she would be able to smell pellet food??

Thanks again

[ILLUSN]

yes they would still find food even if blind, sounds more and more like a paracite, hopefullf the prazi stage of treatment will fix it.

[RKeen]

Further Update
Still no eating from the fish, onto Big L treatment now a little more confident that Big L might work this time

Found something very interesting yesterday when cleaning out the main tank and moving some plants around. In the roots of the plants were these long red worms, I must of found 15 i reckon all within the roots of plants. Im not 100% what type of worms they are but i have never seen them before, The last Levamisole treatment in the tank was probably 3-4 weeks ago now and im guessing these guys were expelled from the discus or hatched or something?

[RKeen]

Big L treatment seems unsuccessful aswell

Is it time to stop treating this fish for awhile i think her stomach could be a mess with all this treatment over the last 4 weeks. Any other suggestions what to use?

thanks in advance

[Snookgum123]

Raise the temperature to 34 degree and maintain water change about 20% a day. But let the water tap water sit for at least 2 days in a bottle or something outside in the sun before you put it in the tank. Try that for at least a week and see if that changes anything. It's something that my dad told me to do and it works i'm just not sure why but it does.