Discus Scrape

[Del]

About a week ago my discus freaked out and scraped a chunk off his nose - the top layer was scraped off and looked raw, but has healed and is darker than the rest of his body (he is a blue diamond).

I have been away for work, and now he looks off colour and not really eating or being social...

I have done a 30% water change.

I want to add salt and have on hand:

1: saxa table salt (ingredients- naturally evaporated sea salt with anti-caking agent 554), or
2: "Sea Salt" fine - aluminum free, free from flowing agent...

Not sure of the dosage and better the best option to use - please help...?

Thanks, DEL

[wickedglass]

I wouldn't use the stuff with anti caking agent.
a lot of people say to use pure sea salt with no iodine added, but there's no evidence to suggest that iodine or no iodine makes a difference.

[Del]

Thanks Chris.

For a 120l planted community tank, what would be the dosage for the sea salt then?

Thanks,
DEL

[FishLover]

Mine did that awhile ago and it healed in few days. I would not do anything other than keep clean water and higher temp. An UV unit will help too in this case.

Sea salt will increase your pH I think. Not a good idea. You are going to stress out the poor guy. Use the salt you can buy from your LFS that is not for salt water tank.

[Merrilyn]

The amount of salt you use is one heap teaspoon per 40 litres of water. After 12 hours you can add another heap teaspoon, per 40 litres and keep it at that concentration till the wound heals.

Use either rock salt, cooking salt or kosher salt. Anything else has added corn flour to make it flow freely, and we don't need that in the tank.

At that rate, it shouldn't alter your pH or affect your plants.

[Del]

I added a teaspoon of "fine sea salt" 2 days ago beacause I thought any more (or the wrong type) might affect my plants.

The wound looks darker today, but not raw.

What should it look like now? It has been a week today since it happened.

Is rock salt different to sea salt?

[samir]

my blue diamond took about two weeks to clear up after getting stuck in some driftwood. i moved a uv to that tank and did a couple of extra wc's but I'm not sure if that made a difference.

[Del]

Thanks Samir, I do have a UV on the tank, so hopefully that will help.

What did the scrape look like afer a week? Dark blue?

Did you add salt?

[samir]

it looked black initially, like someone had put shoe polish on it, and in about a couple of weeks it turned into a shade slightly lighter than the fish. i think it took about 20 days to completely disappear. and that happened just after a levimasole treatment, it makes my fish go crazy. dunno why :?

[Del]

It sounds like the same as mine. That makes me feel so much better Samir, thanks!