unhealhty discuss fish

[lee]

iv only bin keeping discuss a mouth, i bort 3 of them thay was ok for 3 weeks,but last week one has turned a reley dark colour,and the last 3 days he hasent bin eating a thing,i dont want him to die as he costs a lot of money £45 has any one got any idears please.............. HELP

 

[samc]

hi i had the same problem once exacly lasted about 2-3 weeks then went dark and diddnt eat i was pretty certian it was internal parasites it died in the end, this can be treated if the fish is still eating but if not i think might be hard to treat i think it may need salt baths or something cant really remember look it up on the internet
hope it helps
thanks

 

[Nick16]

log onto a discuss forum or TFF, that way there are more people with experiance. after all this is a plant forum.

 

[aaronnorth]

did you cycle the tank? If so how?

 

[amy4342]

Have you wormed the tank? Or noticed white stringy faeces? If so, I'd definately suggest a Flubenol treatment. Also, do you only have the three? It could be that the one that has turned black has been the victim of bullying-they are chichlids after all. They're best kept in groups of 6 or more, because this means that bullying is not concentrated on one individual, although it's not advisable to add anymore until the disease is cleared up. For now, I would start with a Flubenol treatment, with large water changes to keep the water spot on, and keep feeding as normal. I'd lesson the hours the lights are on to try and minimise stress also. I'm assuming you keep them at roughly 29 deg, but it might be worth raising this to to 31-32 slowly. Hope this helps!

 

[Ed Seeley]

The black colouration is a sure sign of stress in that fish. As it's only 1 fish I think it's unlikely to be a generalised problem with water quality (though you should check all of the water parameters just to be sure). Is the dark fish the smallest one? I think bullying is a good call by Amy - they are shoaling fish out of the breeding season but still bicker and need numbers to ease the stress and spread the bullying around.

Personally, while de-worming discus and other wild fish is never a bad thing, I'd wouldn't add a chemical to the water while a fish is stressed and in poor health unless you know that chemical is going to improve the situation. Every chemical, like every drug, has a side-effect or two and you should really not just add them in case. In this case you don't know that worms are causing the problem so I'd wait and de-worm the fish when they are in better health, or you know worms are the problem.