Desperate Help Needed - 4 Deaths This Weekend

I need some urgent assistance please. I came home from work on Thurdsay evening to find three of my discus gasping at the top of the water looking very unwell. I immediately did a large water change and put in some discus vitamins. My husband then did another small water change Friday morning and then I did a 3/4 tank change on Friday evening. By this stage I was very concerned as one was only breathing from one gill and all were covered with excess mucus. I thought that it could well be gill flukes. I went to my local supplier who suggested Formalin. I got home on Saturday and moved the three sick discus to my small quartine tank where I treated them (1 ml for 70 litres)
By Sunday morning two had died (the last one died later that morning) When I turned on the lights on my main tank I found that the remaining fish all had cloudy eyes and my ghost knife fish was laying on the bottom of the tank. I then went to another fish supplier who suggested Malachite green with the formalin and feeding the discus with beefheart mixed with garlic and chilli juice (he has been breeding for 15 years)
We moved the fish to a quarantine tank for a salt bath and then back to the main tank where we treated it with 7ml Formalin and 5ml Malachite Green (Have since learned that this will kill all my filter media but c'est la vie). Have removed carbon and turned off UV light.
The ghost knife fish was dead this morning. The fish are swimming better today but all have cloudy eyes (almost like catarachs) and I have noticed that two have frayed tail fins.
My tank spec is
450 litres (uk)
Ammonia 0
Nitrite 0
Nitrate 0
Filtering with x 2 Fluval 305's
UV sterliser
3/4 RO Water to 1/4 treated tap water (ph of 7)
Temp at 30 degrees

The reason for all of this was a new purchase two weeks ago which I didn't quarantine first(!) I now only have six fish left in my massive tank and worried a) How long to leave them in the formalin/malachite solution b) Are they suffering with a secondary infection. Can anyone help me

Many Thanks to all

Nicky

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Some photos

no discus expert infact i have never kept any, that said

increased mucous and breathing at surface would make me thing that you have had an increase in water borne bacteria reducing oxygen levels and prehaps colonising skin and irritating

the increased mucous production would be some surface irritant broadly speaking the options are external infections of parasites or bacteria and/or water quality issue's including incorrect dosing with some medications alterations in pH etc etc

the increased breathing would suggest , depending on how fish behave, low oxygen saturations(add an air stone and or hydrogen peroxide) or infection of the gill tissue with flukes or bacteria


cloudy eye's will be seen with damage to the corneal surface
either traumatic with transport in a bucket etc or bacterial or toxin in the water, very occasional nematode's can become encysted in the eye

formalin is probably not the safest option for discus
(remember i have no experience) because it is more toxic at high temperature and in soft water
formalin should be used only when increased aeration is available as it binds to oxygen in the water
should never be used if there is a white precipitate in the bottle


so yes sounds like introduced bacterial problem
i would say most fish in good health and with appropriate water can cope with external parasitic incfections so prehaps just turn the uv back on and increase your water change regime to daily , as long as you are happy with your source water

it does sound very much like you have exposed naive fish to a bacterial infection
though the GKF may have been lost due to treatments

andrew

I don't think that the problem is transport as I have had all of my fish between 1-2 years. The latest addition is definitely the problem. My tank is well aeriated with 2 large airstones and a large spray bar. It's a planted tank which also helps. I did have gill flukes (with out a doubt) but my fish have recovered from this (Formalin & Malachite green combo saw to this) But I seem to have a secondary infection which is now the problem. There has been some sort of bloom in bacteria due to the weakened state of the fish. Unfortunately in the uk we do not have prazi so the above was suggested in my fish health book and my discus manual. Am now considering a large tank change (probably 3/4) and then filtering through carbon, increasing the temperature and then seeing what happens. The cloudy eyes happened over night from Saturday to Sunday before I had treated the main tank or given the fish a salt bath. This is why I then treated the main tank en mass as I had already then lost 3 fish that I had moved to the quarantine tank.
I'm pretty sure that it's some sort of fungal infection but need to be sure before treating them with something else.
Thanks for the comment though!

Nicky x

If all fish in the tank are effected, I would check the water source. Could it be that your water company is adding something new to the tap water? Believe, that will not be new to any one here. People lost lots of fish due to that. Do you use de-chrol product to treat your tap water?

You could have a wide pH swing too. Have you checked that? If your pH crashed, it will kill your filter and you will have no filter capacity left. Plus, all the medication you have there could kill your filter too.

I would make sure the water source is not the problem before treating the discus with all kind of drugs.

Thanks to everyone who replied. I have had a friend pop round to see the fish (he commercially bred angels for years) and has told me that the fish are fine. I will be doing a water change tonight (I use R/O Water) and will be sticking my carbon back in to filter out the Formalin/Malachite green mixture out. In about 5 days I will use Meth blue to combat the bacteria infection so fingers crossed.
Will also bleach my nets and treat my blog wood in the quarantine tank to ensure no reinfection.

Thank all :D

Nicky x