Recurring Discus bloat/constipation/tummy troubles?

[PluckyD]

@jwcarlson No flashing, just some slime coat shedding which coincides with this hiding behavior. I also noticed some “pimples” once that went away by the next day. Thanks for sharing your experience and no worries, I appreciate all the info 🙂

[jwcarlson]

Pimples are typically a result of low water quality and tend to go away when water improves.

Slime coat shedding is interesting.

[jwcarlson]

So, thinking a bit more and have a few thoughts.  Just spitballing here.  

Slime coat shedding is common for pH mismatches or some irritant in the water.  I think it's also possible that water with "microbubbles" can cause it as well.  Are you noticing it after water changes?

The other piece of the puzzle here (and I know I touched on this earlier) is this is a schooling fish being kept alone, so there is some baseline level of stress that you cannot relieve.  It's possible that he felt more safe in quarantine (lower lighting? Totally blacked out sides? Less foot traffic?  Less shadows?) But once placed back in the main tank, he goes back to being exceedingly nervous.

I think I relayed the story about a discus I put in isolation and he went on a hunger strike.  Literally the minute I put another discus in with him, he started eating.

[PluckyD]

@jwcarlson The pimples happened only once and the shedding of the slime coat only occurred a couple times coinciding with his hiding, which also comes with the weird poop (lumpy white and looks like there's gas bubbles trapped inside). Also, I am skeptical about the need for a school for him because it's so episodic. Once the episode is over, he's truly seems like a happy camper -- follows me around, begs for food, eats from my hand, hunts around the tank, etc. The reason I got him was because at the store, he was by himself eating all around the tank and didn't seem to care about the other discus and is generally not skittish at all. Again, I don't deny the possibility, but his issues seem more physical than...psychological?

[PluckyD]

So one additional “symptom” about Pod that I have been curious about is his overall anatomy. I’ve only ever seen tiny discus at my LFS and only a couple of specimens at that, so I don’t have much point of comparison. But based on photos and videos on the internet, Pod has always seemed comparatively skinny. Again, he’s grown over an inch since I’ve had him, but never gotten wider. Here are some very poor pictures trying to capture him head on. His …belly? (area in front of pelvic fins) has always had a pinched look. Does he look “normal”?

 

Oh, and once again, he seems better after ~3 days and is back to swimming around and begging for food…but only the good stuff, none of those yucky pellets 🙄

[jwcarlson]

Yes, @PluckyD, he is EXTREMELY thin which tends to point to internal parasites.  Also notice the pinched forehead. Not a perfect shot, but here are some semi-head-on pictures of mine.  They should be pretty beefy narrowing a bit towards the tail.  But in general the main body should be even with the gills.

It's a long road to recovery for a fish that thin.  What's his main diet these days?  What kind of blood worms are you feeding?  Hikari?

 

Edited January 4 by jwcarlson

[PluckyD]

@jwcarlsonThank you for the confirmation; in retrospect, continued parasites makes a lot of sense and just really aligns with all the symptoms. Also, seeing your beautiful "chubby" fish really puts his thinness in perspective 😱 I just took for granted that *surely* he'd be clean(ish) of parasites by now after all the treatments he's been through. 

Regarding his diet, his favorite food remains Ocean Nutrition Frozen Formula One and freshly squished snails. He will also eat Vibrabites, but only after he's confirmed there's nothing better and I've walked away and he will pick at them around the tank. I actually rarely feed frozen bloodworms and only recently bought my second pack since I've had him. My LFS sells SF Bay brand, so that's what I got.

[jwcarlson]

This is just me, but I'd get him on a trusted, parasite free food (prepared or freeze dried) to eliminate that as a possible source of contamination.  There's discus folks that won't even feed Hikari frozen food because they're worried about parasites and consider any other frozen food to basically be asking for problems with a fairly heavy dislike for SF Bay stuff in particular.  I personally feed Hikari frozen blood worms (sparingly), but I also have occasional bouts with worms... so perhaps there's merit to the concerns.  Snails can also vector worms... though I have plenty of bladder snails in my discus tank and they do eat them when I crush them.  Or at least a couple of them do.

Does Pod eat from the surface at all?  If he does that could make changing over to something else easier.  Mine really like freeze dried blackworms, but they're expensive and usually not easy to find.  And they float (but you can push the cube onto the glass, though it still breaks apart and goes all over).  I just put the black worm cubes in and they peck at them at the surface and it works well.  Initially they only wanted to eat them off the glass. 

I don't know what all foods you have, but you can probably find something he'll want, though it might be a pain.  

What is your water change routine like?  If I were you I'd be doing a DEEP, 100% gravel vac daily.  If you don't usually gravel vac, then I would ease into it over a few days.  But the substrate is likely one of the major causes of the reinfestation.  It's tough getting a good clean in my discus tank and there's nothing on the bottom.

I wish you and Pod luck, he's got some fight left in him!

 

Edited January 4 by jwcarlson

[PluckyD]

In case anyone was following along at home, I just wanted to give an update that I ordered 5 grams of Absolute Wormer+ (available on Amazon, and yes, is flubendazole with a little bit of calcium carbonate added) as suggested by @jwcarlson and treated Pod with it a little over two weeks ago. I found some information saying one dose is typically sufficient and 2 doses is only required for severe cases. Given that Pod has been like this for 8 or so months now, I didn't want to take any chances and treated him again 5 days after the first treatment. 

A few days after the second treatment, he had another "episode" (loss of appetite, etc.) but it went by much quicker than normal (lasting only about 2 days). Also, I happened to catch him poop a pretty normal looking 2 mm poop, which was promising. At this point, I am giving into his picky discus ways and feeding him his favorite frozen food and blood worms several times a day in the hopes of fattening him up. He is still quite skinny but no longer looks emaciated. I may treat him again in a month as some people seem to do with discus.

As an aside, I decided to treat my community tank as well. Over the past couple of years, I've had some unexplained deaths and/or illness, *possibly* symptomatic of hole-in-the-head or other disease I couldn't quite pinpoint, and I've noticed recently that my pearl gouramis just seemed a bit "off" and I was worried were going to get sicker. The tank and inhabitants have also gone through the med trio + PraziPro + Expel-P/levamisole before, so I figured whatever ails/ailed Pod might also by in my other tanks. Since treatment, I do believe my pearl gouramis are back to normal health.

Alas, since the flubendazole did not harm the shrimp in Pod's tank and there were still pond snails in his tank as well, I ended up taking no additional precautions for my community tank...to the peril of my nerite snails. I see now that lots of people have already reported flubendazole is harmful to nerites, so I am just sharing another data point. My experience is that it doesn't kill the nerites but paralyzes them (which I think I feel worse about as they are still alive over a week later, and presumed slowly starving to death 😞). This is the same effect that "No Planaria" had (which is supposedly made from betel nut extract). I also have a freshwater clam in the tank which may be affected as well -- after pulling it out to check on it, I find it's not able to burrow back into the sand.

[jwcarlson]

I hope Pod bounces back for you, @PluckyD!

[jwcarlson]

How has Pod been, @PluckyD?

[PluckyD]

On 2/1/2024 at 11:53 AM, jwcarlson said:

How has Pod been, @PluckyD?

Fattening up and pooping like a champ, thanks for asking 🙂 

I was going to wait another few weeks to see if we have another tummy ache episode since he never went longer than 6 weeks or so without having at least one, and he *does* seem suspiciously dark right now, so I'm not ready to call it cured, but I'm hopeful. 

 

 

[jwcarlson]

He certainly looks better, I wouldn't be afraid to do another round.

Edited February 2 by jwcarlson

[PluckyD]

On 2/1/2024 at 6:09 PM, jwcarlson said:

He certainly looks better, I wouldn't be afraid to do another round.

Thanks, although I know he still has a lot of fattening up to go, and I do wonder if he will ever be round and plumpy like yours or if he's stunted already. He seems to have grown in size more instead of just fattening up, so maybe when he's done getting bigger, he will plumpen more.

I was planning to do another round in a couple of weeks to give it a full month after the last round. Do you think it is better to do it sooner? 

 

[jwcarlson]

I'd probably do it sooner.  Parasite live cycles aren't waiting!

If he is growing that's a good sign.  He isn't going to reach his full potential, but he will eventually put on weight if the care stays up.  Needs lots of new water while growing too.  That's an easy one to skimp on.

Glad to hear he's doing well!

[jwcarlson]

How are things going, @PluckyD?

[PluckyD]

Good timing @jwcarlson, I had just been considering posting an update and am making the time now due to your prompting 🙂 

I venture to say, Pod seems to be doing well these days. Looking back at pictures from since I got Pod last year in April, I can now see how he had grown but gotten slowly slimmer until I asked about him in October. He then rapidly declined, degenerating to the condition of a Charlie Brown Christmas tree of a fish tree in January (unfortunately, I was unable to care for my tanks beyond feeding during those months).

I did do another round of the Absolute Dewormer at your prompting, but that was the last round. He hasn't had a hiding episode in several weeks now. More promisingly, he had slowly gotten back to the proportions he had been when I first got him, and now I think he's even plumped a bit beyond that while also being larger in size. He is a very personable fish and exhibits no hiding behavior. I've also managed to get him onto several different dry pellet foods.

I will be honest that I am not taking care of him the way some discus keepers might, but he is a member of the community tank which I keep like most of my other planted tanks. I water change every other week on average. The Bloody Mary neos and the sterbai cories have both reproduced. I also replaced the the nerites with some otocinculus that seem to be thriving as well. I do keep the tank at 86 for Pod's comfort though. Thanks for checking in and I hope this is helpful to anyone else who might have similar issues.

[jwcarlson]

That's good to hear, he does look to have gained some weight.  Discus can do just fine down to 82!

[PluckyD]

On 3/17/2024 at 4:53 PM, jwcarlson said:

Discus can do just fine down to 82!

Ah yes, I plan to keep it at 86 while it’s still cold weather wise, but will actually unplug the heaters once it warms up. We usually keep our house around 78-80 in the summer, so that will be the “cool” season for the tank 😜

Edited March 18 by PluckyD

[PluckyD]

Another update to show that Pod continues to thrive since his deworming treatment. He has gotten even plumper since last month and seems like a normal discus fish shape now? I’ve had him just over a year and he’s right around 5+ inches, which is on the smaller end of the spectrum, but I believe still healthy. It’s possible he is a she and could be smaller for that reason too.
 

He still has the faintest hint of a dimple in his center which I have read different accounts about for discus, but I hope it rounds out as he continues to put on more weight. He gets 2-4 frozen cubes of something or other (bloodworms, brine shrimp, spirulina, etc) every day along with a dry pellet on auto feeder 4 times a day. He used to be very picky but I’ve gotten him to eat most things with a staged introduction.

I am now closer to water changing every 3-4 weeks or even longer, but that’s already more frequent than all my other tanks. Nitrates stay around 20-40 with dosing fertilizer and heavy feeding. He has shown no ill effects, again, since his deworming, (I.e. no hiding, weird poop, pimples, slime coat shedding, etc). I dropped his tank down from 86 to 82 degrees for now and may have to cut down on some feeding if he shows a noticeable drop in hangryness. At this point, I think this is a case closed situation so will not bother updating anymore, but just wanted to share a success story around treating discus, and thank you to this forum and those who helped.