Discus Dting From Hole In The Head

[ztar]

Hi,

We have lost quite a few tank mates to this dreaded disease over the last 6 months and are at a bit of a loss. The two most recent losses have been discus. One less than a year old and one 2 year old. We have seeked various help from people in aquarium shops, discus specialists, books and other forums to no avail. We are still loosing fish every couple of months!! I have filled out the form below to make things easier:

Tank size: 4ft x 1.5ft x 2ft
pH: 6.6 - 6.7 (electric ph probe)
ammonia: 0 (using liquid test)
nitrite: 0 (dip test)
nitrate: 20 - 30 (dip test)
kH:40 (dip test)
gH: 120 (dip test)
tank temp: 29 C
filter ; fluval 305

Fish Symptoms (include full description including lesion, color, location, fish behavior): Fish become unsociable and loose appetite, although the severity of these syptoms vary from fish to fish. some hide away in the dark and dont eat for days while others just become less active and still eat. Fish die after 1 - 7days and often show holes/bumps on head and/or lateral line damage. However a few of our fish have had light heads or bodies so this is not always obvious until inspecting the fish after death. Fins undamaged. Eyes fine. Gills sometimes swollen or red though not always. The most recent fish to die (our beautiful red snow discus) also had a rather swollen belly, but this may just be because she was getting ready to lay eggs. She had layed eggs about 2 weeks before however and layed regularly.

Food given: tetra colour pro (once per day) Tetra Prima (once per day) Beefheart (1-2 blocks per day) Daphnia (fed as a treat every couple of days), Hikari Algae wafers twice a day. Each portion alows all fish aprox 5 mins of relaxed feeding. spread around the tank to minimise aggression and over eating. all frozen food is defrosted, drained and has "waterlife vitazin milti vitamins" added. Feeding times vary.

Volume and Frequency of water changes: 30% weekly or twice a week. 70% RO, 30% treated tap (hard)

Chemical Additives or Media in your tank: media: fluval clearmax and amonia remover

Tank inhabitants: (after most recent death) 1 mature 6 inch discus, 3 young discus 3-4inch, 8 neon cardinals, 5 rummy noses, 6 baby sterbai cory's, 2 very old peppered corys, 2 adult golden zebra plecs (2-3 inches).

Recent additions to your tank (living or decoration): 6 sterbai cory's last month

Exposure to chemicals: none that we are aware of. we try not to add meds unless necessary. they are wormed aprox every threee months however

Other info: this is a semi planted tank. We have had slight algae growth in the last 2 weeks at the back of the tank near the light but nothing major. no increase in nitrate from what we can see.

Can post photo if necessary

Any help would be much appreciated! We dont want to loose any more of our fish to HITH

 

[star4]

How often are you using vitazin? once or twice a week is recomended, not every feed. I have just gone through HITH with my oscar he too has perfect water conditions (fish is my pride and joy) however his HITH was brought on by stress from loosing his tank mate . Other causes can be food boredem and lack of the right foods, now I have never kept discus and no little about them. have they been wormed recently? one thing I have read about discus is they need worming, and googling HITH causes for my oscar I did come across one site mentioning the HITH parasite can start in the gut, how true this is I do not know. Also keep a close check for any bullying from the other fish, stress can also bring it on. Best option is 10-15% daily wc until every single fish is completely clear, then reduce to every other day, then every 3 days and so on until you are back to your weekly wc. Hope this helps

 

[WILDER]

Any signs of flicking and rubbing?
Head & Lateral Line Erosion

Symptoms:

This disease is marked by open pitted wounds around a fish's head and along the lateral line, as if something is slowly eroding away the flesh. It is very similar to the freshwater disease Hole-In-The-Head. Head & Lateral Line Erosion (HLLE) is not fatal in the short run, but if the disease continues to progress, the fish will stop eating and become lethargic. Furthermore, the open wounds caused by HLLE make the fish susceptible to other infections which in turn leads to the further deterioration of its health. These secondary infections are usually the cause of death.


Cause:

Unknown cause, although it is thought that there may be several contributing causes including stray voltage in the aquarium, poor water quality and environmental conditions, high nitrate levels, lack of vitamins and poor nutrition, stress, parasitic infestation (the protozoan Octomita necatrix), or using carbon. Some fish, like Tangs and Surgeonfish, seem to be genetically predisposed to this disease.

The lateral line aids fish in detecting small microvoltages emmited by prey or predators during muscle contraction. The induced voltages from any submerged coil device such as a powerhead, heater, and pump can all add voltage to the tank. This stray voltage can irritate a fish's lateral line if it's constantly stimulating it and eventually lead to erosion of the skin overlying this structure.


Treatment:

Medications do not seem to do much for this disease, although the use of medicated food is recommended to prevent bacterial secondary infections. The best intervention, however, seems to be improving the water quality and supplementing the fish's diet with vitamins, particularly vitamins A, B, D, and E as well as iodine. This can be done several ways. Food can be soaked in water with a drop of liquid multivitamins, such as Selcon or Zoe. Alternatively, fish could be fed fresh or frozen vegetables, such as broccoli, zuchinni, and peas.

The importance of good regular aquarium maintenance cannot be stressed enough. Eliminate any stress-inducing factors. It might also be a good idea to add a grounding probe to the aquarium if you suspect that there may be stray voltage in the aquarium.





Fish+Disease.Vet

 

[ztar]

Hi, thanks for your replies.

star4: I have indeed been using vitazing for every feed. was a bit dubious about this but was advised by the guy in the shop that this was how to use it. May have to cut down as what you say does make sense. Bit wierd how there is nothing on the bottle to say how often to use though. They are just due for their worming in the next few days.

In regards to boredom, this is unlikely as we always go out of our way to make sure the fish are stimulated by encoraging them to forage for food as they would in the wild. They never seem bored and dont often stay in one place for long. They also have bogwood and live/plastic plants with gravel. The fish seem to get on well.

The only behavior I did notice recently was that the largest discus in the tank (alenqua) had been getting a lot of attention from the two juvinile females we have had for about 4 months. They have been shimmying at him (obviously seeing him as a potential mate) and following him around. However the red snow that passed away recently was paired up with the alenqua. Im just wondering whether she had perhaps felt threatened by the two younger ones flirting with her man and had got stressed......? There is another male in the tank, but he is not very "manly" and none of the females like him very much. We had been thinking of getting another male, but were worried about potential aggression as they all get on well and didnt want to rock the boat.

Wilder: There have been very occasional signs of flicking but tends to be infrequent (maybe once a week i notice). Though thinking about it, it was always the red snow that I noticed. The others I havent seen flicking at all.

The symptoms of the desease seem more like HITH from what I can tell as the marks on the head are more like neat little holes sometimes with fungus coming out. However, our other discus that passed away a couple of months ago did have lateral line erosion and red gills, while nothing present on the head. This fish was the exception however.

We are going to the aquarium today to get lots of RO water to do some small steady water changes daily and maybe get some meds just in case. stray voltage might also be worth exploring perhaps.

 

[Tolak]

http/www.fishforums.net/index.php?/topic/191872-hole-in-the-head/

Metro, clean clean water, and vitamin enhancement. If it's mainly the discus I'd do a med tank, jack the temperature while medicating. The sterbai will probably take temperatures approaching 90F, the rest of the cats & tetras maybe not. Discus won't have a problem at this temperature.

Hexamita & spironucleus have been implicated in HITH & LLE, as has running carbon, there is enough inferred data around to come up with a connection. The metro with clear up any internal flagellates, the vitamin enhancement will take care of any dietary deficiencies. Metronidazole, liquid children's vitamins, as well as several other things are usual on hand supplies for anyone with a lot of tanks that keeps cichlids, as internal protozoans are a fairly common issue.