Help - Discus turning black and slimy

[samk]

Four of my discus have turned black and have a white coloured slime on thier bodies.

One has already died.

The second one doesn't look good...

Help!

[celticfish]

you might want to post this on "fish care and nutrition".

basic steps for discus is to raise the temparature to 32 celcius. slowly i might add. for example 1 degree every 4 to 6 hours. give it about 3 days to observe the effectiveness.

if that doesn't work raise to 34 degrees for a maximum of two days.

you do this to try to get them to eat.

it also depend on the size of your discus. if they are adults they should be alright once you get them to eat. if they are juveniles the pronosis is not good. they will not grow to full potential or get stunted.

if they are in a planted setup with CO2 injection you may want to do a search on this as i am not very familiar in these setups. i do remember coming across a thread on CO2 effects on them.

[samk]

Thank you for the suggestion - the temperature is already at 30 degrees celcius. The tank is planted and the discus are juveniles.

The discus that is the worst affected is eating a very small amount still. I found a cure using copper sulphate which I will try and see how I go...

[Justikanz]

Moving Moved to appropriate section for more attention.

[grey_fox]

Hey Samk,

Would like to share with you my experience.

Mine was the same, all 7 (juveniles) of them. Originally I replaced one of my canister filters (transferred some of the Efhi Substrat and some mulm) and the week after and all was well until the other canister filter failed, which meant that there was not enough time for the new filter to get stabilised, thus causing the water parameters to go haywire, with 2 new canister filters cycling the tank and the BB crash, the affected fishes in my tank were, none other than the discus.

What I did was moved the most affected fishes out, that being two blue diamonds (covered with whitish slime) and gave a generous dosing of copper sulphate (as directed) and good aeration. I placed them in a dark room (my store room) and maintained the temperature at 31 degrees (with a heater). I did not bother to feed them. After 1 week and partial changes of water every other day, they eventually healed and was only transferred back to the main tank after another 2 weeks (after they started eating, etc) I introduced the original tank's water bit by bit over the two weeks.

As for the 5, they healed by themselves (whilst still being in the main planted tank [I did do a 35% water change in accordance to the E.I schedule that I am following] - over a week and a half) and only had 1 casualty, that being a smaller discus.

Now I currently have 6 of them and am maintaining a tank temp of 27.6 - 28.6 degrees (without chiller) and all are healthy and eating.

Hope this helps you and best of luck! Discus in general are rather sensitive fishes and will definitely be the first in the tank to display symptons that the tanks' water parameter is wrong.

I might be wrong but for my case, it was obvious that it was the water parameters was in question.

Best of luck, again!

[samk]

Excellent - thank you very much for the advise. I have also noticed that my discus look better/healthier in the morning. I think that light may affect them, so I will keep the light off.

Unfortunately I lost one of the discus last night.... The others are looking a little better though. I found out that the ammonia level was elevated, so I treated that. I also used copper sulphate to treat the slime. I'm not sure what part helped, but I'm glad it did!

Thanks again

[grey_fox]

Good on you mate.

Continue to monitor them.

Just a question, you housing them in a planted tank or bare tank? Also, probably you might know this already, when adding new livestock, especially discus or new inhabitants in a discus tank, it is wise to have the new members quarantined first for a minimum of one week.

[samk]

The discus are in a planted tank.

I'm continuing to treat the ammonia and I have added another small dose of copper sulphate. The discus are definitely looking better

Thank you for all your help