Discus fish illness - skin inside throat blocking airway

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We only found out about it a few weeks ago and it was purely by accident. I'm still freaked out about it because we have been told to feed discus on meat foods for decades, and then the scientists do a study on wild discus diet because there has never been one done. It blew my mind.

Your fish are probably doing ok because of the planted tank and the plant based food you give them.

The tank looks good too :)

If you can get pictures of the other discus fish mouths, we will have something to compare the orange discus to.
Thanks again for your help and thank you for the compliment on the tank.
We only found out about it a few weeks ago and it was purely by accident. I'm still freaked out about it because we have been told to feed discus on meat foods for decades, and then the scientists do a study on wild discus diet because there has never been one done. It blew my mind.

Your fish are probably doing ok because of the planted tank and the plant based food you give them.

The tank looks good too :)

If you can get pictures of the other discus fish mouths, we will have something to compare the orange discus to.
 

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I'm no help I'm afraid, just wanted to say that your tank is lovely, and that black angel is beautiful! Really stunning, and I really want one now! I won't, but I want a pair!
Thank you. The Angel has a breeding mate in the tank that is pure gold, they make beautiful babies. We got each angel from different pet stores so we feel pretty sure that they are not siblings. This is a picture of two of his babies in my other tank7DA54DA6-A39C-47C1-A832-5C2FC85B4D21.jpeg97DB8800-16CA-408C-BBA4-E23544BD1025.jpeg
 
It could be a throat or sinus infection (fish equivalent of). However, if it keeps coming back then there is an underlying cause that needs to be found and fixed.

You mention hole in the head disease, this is normally caused by a dirty tank, gravel and or filter.

How often do you do water changes and how much do you change?
Do you gravel clean the open areas of substrate when you do a water change?

How often and how do you clean the filter?

Did you add anything to the tank in the 2 weeks before this all started?
 
It could be a throat or sinus infection (fish equivalent of). However, if it keeps coming back then there is an underlying cause that needs to be found and fixed.

You mention hole in the head disease, this is normally caused by a dirty tank, gravel and or filter.

How often do you do water changes and how much do you change?
Do you gravel clean the open areas of substrate when you do a water change?

How often and how do you clean the filter?

Did you add anything to the tank in the 2 weeks before this all started?
Thanks for continuing to help figure this out. I haven’t thought about sinus infection, I’ll do some research. The past two times this has happened he has had white stuff coming out of his head, almost looks like meat. My thought it it’s swelling from that causing the throat to cave in. However when the sore heals, the mouth skin stays.

I may be wrong about the diagnoses “hole In the head” the hole was caused by a massive chunk of meat/swelling coming out above his nostril. The hole hasn’t closed but hasn’t gotten worse.

Water changes every 7-10 days. 20-25% of the water. I clean the canister filter every 5 weeks.
I suck the gravel out each water change.

I add “seachem discus trace” weekly and stability, stress guard and prime after a water change. Sometimes seachem alkaline buffer or discus buffer or neutral regulator if the ph is dropping below 6.0.

I read that hole in the head could also be caused by lack of nutrients because carbon in the filter. My GH has been way low, so 2 weeks ago I removed the carbon and just use purigen. And I did the first dose of seachem equalizer (raises GH) 3 weeks ago. This was after the first time the mouth skin appeared but before it appeared the second time.

I have been feeding 3 times a day and thinking about going down to two times a day. I keep getting black beard algae, I had a bad break out when I first started my tank, I thought I got it all but it keeps popping back every now and then. I know this is also a sign of a dirty tank but I feel my cleaning regimen is pretty good?

I would think that if the tank was that dirty I would have other fish sick, not just this one? I hope I don’t sound defensive, I’m open to all feedback.
 
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HITH may activate more often in dirty tank conditions, but it is a parasite that causes it, and the treatment is Metronidazole, at least every other day for 5 days. Dosage may depend on product chosen. Remove fresh carbon before beginning treatment. It is contagious to all cichlids including angels and discus. If that is the problem, well that is the treatment.
 
Hole in the head disease and head and lateral line disease are caused by Hexamita, which is a parasite that loves dirty tank conditions. It has nothing to do with soft water, carbon or anything else.

Hole in the head and head and lateral line disease are caused by excess nutrients in the water, not lack of nutrients.

It usually starts out as small white pimple type lumps around the head and face. These grow for a few days and start to look like small white worms coming out of the fish's head. Then the white bits disappear and the fish is left with a crater/ pit in the head. These pits continue to grow and more appear as the disease progresses. You can use Metronidazole or salt to cure it but you need to treat the tank and fish for 1-2 weeks (normally 1 week for metronidazole and 2 weeks for salt). And you need to keep the tank clean to stop the disease coming back. If you just treat the fish in a quarantine tank and then put it back in the main tank, the disease is still in the main tank and simply re-infects the fish. Fish that have been infected and successfully treated will usually have scars from the pits that remain for the rest of the fish's life.

The inflammation in the mouth is probably related to the disease and to poor water quality (dirty environment).

Directions for using salt are below. Salt is safer for the environment than Metronidazole, which is an antibiotic designed for people.

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WATER CHANGES
I would do a bigger water change each week. You want to do at least 50% and preferably 75% each week.
Make sure any new water is free of chlorine/ chloramine before it's added to the tank.

You do water changes for 2 main reasons.
1) to reduce nutrients like ammonia, nitrite & nitrate.
2) to dilute disease organisms in the water.

Fish live in a soup of microscopic organisms including bacteria, fungus, viruses, protozoans, worms, flukes and various other things that make your skin crawl. Doing a big water change and gravel cleaning the substrate on a regular basis will dilute these organisms and reduce their numbers in the water, thus making it a safer and healthier environment for the fish.

If you do a 25% water change each week you leave behind 75% of the bad stuff in the water.
If you do a 50% water change each week you leave behind 50% of the bad stuff in the water.
If you do a 75% water change each week you leave behind 25% of the bad stuff in the water.

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GH, KH & pH
What is the GH (general hardness), KH (carbonate hardness) and pH of your water supply?
This information can usually be obtained from your water supply company's website or by telephoning them. If they can't help you, take a glass full of tap water to the local pet shop and get them to test it for you. Write the results down (in numbers) when they do the tests. And ask them what the results are in (eg: ppm, dGH, or something else).

Discus naturally occur in soft water with a GH below 100ppm and usually below 50ppm. You shouldn't need to add GH or KH buffers unless you use reverse osmosis water, and even then I don't think it's necessary for discus or angelfish.

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ADDITIVES/ SUPPLEMENTS
The Seachem Discus Trace is a GH buffer and I don't think you need it unless you have fish that need more minerals in the water.

Seachem Stability is a filter bacteria supplement that only needs to be used when first starting an aquarium and does nothing once the filter is cycled. So unless you wash the filter under tap water or replace the media/ materials every month, I would not bother using that.

I wouldn't bother using Seachem StressGuard either.

The Seachem Prime is fine and should be used for dechlorinating any new water before the water is added to the aquarium.

The Seachem pH buffers shouldn't be necessary if you do bigger water changes. You can also add some limestone, shells or dead coral rubble to the tank or filter to help stop the pH from dropping. But again, discus and angelfish come from soft acid water.

Carbon does not remove nutrients like ammonia, nitrite & nitrate, and is primarily used to remove heavy metals and chemicals from water. This includes things like copper, aquarium plant fertiliser, and medications.

I am unsure what Seachem Purigen actually does. Their website and the internet does not give me the information I want. However, I would not bother using it. If you want to keep the aquarium clean, do big regular water changes, gravel clean the substrate, and clean the filter regularly. Most of which you already do. Just increase the size of the water changes.

Is the Seachem equalizer actually Seaqchem Equilibrium?
If yes, then it raises GH like the aforementioned items (discus trace, etc) and is probably not needed.

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FEEDING
You can feed adult fish once or twice a day, and increase it to 3-5 times a day if they are breeding. However, you should do big daily water changes and gravel clean the substrate if feeding 3-5 times a day to keep the tank clean.

-----------------------
The black beard algae is usually a problem when there is too much light or too many nutrients. It's a pain in the butt to get rid of once it's established.

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WEAK FISH
The fish that keeps getting sick could have a weaker immune system compared to the others. This can be caused by stress (being 2nd in charge means it's being bullied by someone higher up the pecking order). Inbreeding weakens fish, as does poor diet, high nitrates, dirty environmental conditions, and parasites like worms and gill flukes. That particular fish could have any combination of these issues, which is making it more susceptible to health issues.
 
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SALT

Using Salt to Treat Fish Health Issues.

For some fish diseases you can use salt (sodium chloride) to treat the ailment rather than using a chemical based medication. Salt is relatively safe and is regularly used in the aquaculture industry to treat food fish for diseases. Salt has been successfully used to treat minor fungal and bacterial infections, as well as a number of external protozoan infections. Salt alone will not treat whitespot (Ichthyophthirius) or Velvet (Oodinium) but will treat most other types of protozoan infections in freshwater fishes.

You can add rock salt (often sold as aquarium salt) or swimming pool salt to the aquarium at the dose rate of 1 heaped tablespoon per 20 litres of water. If there is no improvement after 48 hours you can double that dose rate so there is 2 heaped tablespoons of salt per 20 litres.

Keep the salt level like this for at least 2 weeks but no longer than 4 weeks otherwise kidney damage can occur. Kidney damage is more likely to occur in fish from soft water (tetras, Corydoras, angelfish, Bettas & gouramis, loaches) that are exposed to high levels of salt for an extended period of time, and is not an issue with livebearers, rainbowfish or other salt tolerant species.

The salt will not affect the beneficial filter bacteria, fish, plants, shrimp or snails.

After you use salt and the fish have recovered, you do a 10% water change each day for a week using only fresh water that has been dechlorinated. Then do a 20% water change each day for a week. Then you can do bigger water changes after that. This dilutes the salt out of the tank slowly so it doesn't harm the fish.

If you do water changes while using salt, you need to treat the new water with salt before adding it to the tank. This will keep the salt level stable in the tank and minimise stress on the fish.

When you first add salt, add the salt to a small bucket of tank water and dissolve the salt. Then slowly pour the salt water into the tank near the filter outlet. Add the salt over a couple of minutes.
 
SALT

Using Salt to Treat Fish Health Issues.

For some fish diseases you can use salt (sodium chloride) to treat the ailment rather than using a chemical based medication. Salt is relatively safe and is regularly used in the aquaculture industry to treat food fish for diseases. Salt has been successfully used to treat minor fungal and bacterial infections, as well as a number of external protozoan infections. Salt alone will not treat whitespot (Ichthyophthirius) or Velvet (Oodinium) but will treat most other types of protozoan infections in freshwater fishes.

You can add rock salt (often sold as aquarium salt) or swimming pool salt to the aquarium at the dose rate of 1 heaped tablespoon per 20 litres of water. If there is no improvement after 48 hours you can double that dose rate so there is 2 heaped tablespoons of salt per 20 litres.

Keep the salt level like this for at least 2 weeks but no longer than 4 weeks otherwise kidney damage can occur. Kidney damage is more likely to occur in fish from soft water (tetras, Corydoras, angelfish, Bettas & gouramis, loaches) that are exposed to high levels of salt for an extended period of time, and is not an issue with livebearers, rainbowfish or other salt tolerant species.

The salt will not affect the beneficial filter bacteria, fish, plants, shrimp or snails.

After you use salt and the fish have recovered, you do a 10% water change each day for a week using only fresh water that has been dechlorinated. Then do a 20% water change each day for a week. Then you can do bigger water changes after that. This dilutes the salt out of the tank slowly so it doesn't harm the fish.

If you do water changes while using salt, you need to treat the new water with salt before adding it to the tank. This will keep the salt level stable in the tank and minimise stress on the fish.

When you first add salt, add the salt to a small bucket of tank water and dissolve the salt. Then slowly pour the salt water into the tank near the filter outlet. Add the salt over a couple of minutes.
Wow, thanks for all this info Colin! I really appreciate all the time and detail you have put in to help me with this issue. Looks like I have my work cut out for me for the next few weeks, as well as changing up my routine. I’m glad I asked for help, or I would have kept doing things poorly, or keep doing things that don’t need to be done or helpful.

I’ve never used salt because I’ve always been to nervous, but your explanation and instructions help. I will give it a try.

thanks again for your help!
 
Welp, I was going to do a deep clean and salt treatment, but 2 of my discus had other plans…they decided to consummate their relationship with a batch of eggs. This is a first for us, but really excited. We are going to let nature take its course and not intervene, but it’s always exciting to see this. Especially since we were told it’s very difficult to breed discuss.

We might breed them later, but not sure we are ready for that commitment yet
 

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It's tough, and I have seen such things before. You get to a point where wastes build up, and Discus, Geophagus, etc become real work. Pitting on the head is loud warning number one.
If I ever go back to such fish again, I will stock at one fish per 25 gallons in the tank, with 50% weekly changes.
 
The fish might eat their first few batches of eggs, this is common in captive bred fishes.

The babies feed off the mucous on the parent's bodies and they should be allowed to do this for the first month. The slime/ mucous has bacteria and nutrients in that the baby fish need to help their digestive tracts develop and to build up their immune system.

You can feed the baby fish on newly hatched brineshrimp and microworms too, while they are feeding off the parents.
 
Welp, I was going to do a deep clean and salt treatment, but 2 of my discus had other plans…they decided to consummate their relationship with a batch of eggs. This is a first for us, but really excited. We are going to let nature take its course and not intervene, but it’s always exciting to see this. Especially since we were told it’s very difficult to breed discuss.

We might breed them later, but not sure we are ready for that commitment yet
Love those pics, they look like their really taking the new role seriously! 🤱
 
It could be a throat or sinus infection (fish equivalent of). However, if it keeps coming back then there is an underlying cause that needs to be found and fixed.

You mention hole in the head disease, this is normally caused by a dirty tank, gravel and or filter.

How often do you do water changes and how much do you change?
Do you gravel clean the open areas of substrate when you do a water change?

How often and how do you clean the filter?

Did you add anything to the tank in the 2 weeks before this all started?
It has Covid 🤪 🤣
 

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