HELP!!!!SKINNY, CHANGED FROM YELLOW TO WHITE, DOESN'T EAT!

[ILLUSN]

the only safe value for ammonia or ammonium is 0 regardless of PH you'll need to do more water changes to get it down and keep it down.

if you seriously want to keep your pleco, get onto ebay and keep an eye out for a 4x2x2 foot tank, thats the size you'll need.

as for your discus he/she is in VERY bad shape, if it were my fish i'd be reaching for a bucket and some clove oil.

if you really want to give it the best shot of survival, get it into a bare bottom tank (or big bucket) with a heater and airstone, do daily or 2x daily water changes or around 95% and feed live worms, i know this will give the fish all kinds of diseases, but if you try and treat aggresivly in that state it will die.

live worms are very high in fat and will put bulk on the fish fast, you'll see improvement within 2 weeks. once the fish has put on some weight worm with prazi and levimenisole, do at leats 4 treatments of each then if need be have some metro on standby to treat for protoza infections

[alan]

Hi,
Thanks. after reading about gill flukes I added parablast to the tank,1 and a half tablet to the 60 ltr tank, this was a week ago, now pleco does not clean the tank, and the skin changed to light color, same as the shark, from black it changed to gray!!
No obvious change in discus. The idea of live worm is good but it might not survive another chemical treatment. the other problem is I couldn't find metro anywhere.
managed to get a 20 ltr tank to set it up as (bucket), have to find a heater now and isolation treatment will start.

[alan]

The idea of clove oil, was that for real or been used as an expression?

[Hollowman]

Alan, when we feel that we want to do the best thing for a sick, damaged or badly deformed fish, we DO reach for clove oil.
Clove oil can be used both as an anesthetic or to euthenaise fish. We, as humans use it for tooth-ache. But used to cull fish we can mix 10-15 drops in a gallon of tank water and add the fish. (or mix the drops in a glass and shake to mix, then add slowly to a bucket with the fish already in there)
It puts the fish to sleep with no thrashing, or distress, they just go to sleep. When the gills stop moving, I leave for a further 10 minutes, and I know the job is done.
I don't think ILLUSN means that you have to use it, but when all else fails, sometimes it is the only way to go. hth

Hollowman

[ILLUSN]

I was serious, sometimes when there isn't any hope its the most humane thing to do rather than watch the fish suffer and starve to death slowly.

if you keep medicating your main tank the way you are you will loose all your fish, plecos are sensitive to many meds and will drop dead , even at a low dose.

treat your discus only in isolation, then get a bigger tank, or move on the rest of your fish.

[alan]

Hi Guys,
Sorry to mention that I lost the discus, This was the third one in 3 years time and a bit of disappointment for me as it shows i am horrible in keeping discus, lost 3 out of 3!
I changed 70% of water in the main tank as others weren't feeling good.now the battle is on to save others from meds.