head standing discus

hey guys!

As I am typing from my cellphone,i cant copy and fill in @Dirk problem sheet,but ill try and give as much info as possible!

One of my discus in attached pic is slightly of balance that makes him pointing down below.
He is not faceing towards to bottom,but almost,ill say if you compare it to a watch,he will be faceing to 04h30.
Ive seen worse cases where the fish have to fight all the time to stay in the normal position.
Maybe it is a swim bladder problem because looks like he is swimming down,thats the reason for pointing down,as his back end seems to go up.
Fish is 14 to 15cm.
Only fish in tank with this problem.
Problem been there for almost a month now.
Last fish added to tank was 3 months ago.
Ive had this fish fo almost 9 months!
He eats well and still manage to spawn with a female almost ever 10days.
Waterchanges once a week,with prime treated water that stood for 2 days heated up before wc!
Eats al diffrent kinds of food.
Temp 29
ph 5
not useing RO!
Bare bottom tank
this is my largest fish in tank,and in a very good condition!

What can it be,and how can I fix it?

The attached pic is a old one,as I am back at sea,and cant take a new one!

Thanks

 

still no help and discus still have same problem!
Any ideas what could be wrong?
Please

 

Hi JabulaWhat a beautiful Discus he is. Wish I could help you buddy, but sitting with a problem myself & got a reply from Prof as to what to do. I would suggest that you try & PM the Professor & ask him for help.Good Luck to you Jabula

 

HI Jabula,

This fish has a swimbladder infection, but if you say that he started with this a month ago, then this is too late for treatment, that is also why I did not reply straight away. When a discus starts with these problems you can treat with success if you start treatment within 3 days of the start of the problem otherwise the damage is permanent. You should have treated with sulphonamides but then only 50% of the fishes that are treated recover and most will go down with the problem later again.

What will happen is that this condition will get steadily worse until he only faces down and then at some point you must decide whether you want to put him out of his misery.

The most common reason for this problem is feeding frozen chunks of food directly into the tank which often the biggest fish guzzles down and then this cold food in his tummy chills his swimbladder which sits right next to his tummy and then he gets an infection there and cannot regulate the amount of air in the swimbladder any longer. You need to thaw the food before adding it to the tank.

Sorry about the bad news.

Kind regards,

Dirk

 

Hi Prof!

Thanks for that,it is a pitty,as it is one of the discus close to my hart!

Can I still try giving him meds,as there is no harm in trying?
Do I treat the tank,or do I treat him in a hospital tank?
And how do I treat him?

But now ive learned something,as my fod always go frozen into my tank!

Thanks for the reply Prof!

Charles

 

Hi Charles,

You can try to treat him with tablets of Purbac, one capsule per 100 litres, repeated every three days and try 2 or 3 repeated treatments, but I don't know if it will work. I would treat him in a hospital tank.

Sorry about the bad news, but at least you have learnt about the frozen food. You should go and have a look at this thread with similar problems just recently:

http://www.tropicalaquarium.co.za/s...us-has-dimples-all-of-a-sudden-what-can-it-be

Kind regards,

Dirk

 

hi Dirk!

Thanks for all the info!
The purbac tabs ive got on the boat is big white 1000mg tabs!
So just makeing sure that I must put 10mg per litre?

I keep them on boat for a much different use,often I have to dose crew with them!

Lol

Thanks again for your help!

 

Hi, just wanted to know if you managed to save this discus? if so, how did you manage to do it. did the purbac do the trick?

regards

 

I have had a similar problem when I got my discus fish. I also fed them frozen blood worms and the one looked bloated and stop eating for a month, later the bloated stomach went away and he started to eat again. The only difference between the two is one is bigger then the other and now almost a year later the bigger one starts to fight with the smaller one.

The smaller is way out stressed at the moment. I'm planning on adding a few more discus in the near future to see if I can settle the despite between the two.

I've stopped feeding blood worms as well.

Ive posted on a other threat if it will help if I put other type discus than the Turquoise discus I've got in the tank, or do I need to get more Turquoise to settle the despite?

 

The type / colour of discus doesn't matter, they don't distinguish between "races" :tongue:
Some people only like to have one strain in a tank, but that's a personal aesthetic preference. The fish don't mind. Any strain will do, however to really solve bullying the optimal number is 6 or more.