TedsTank

Well my Discus adventure has become quite a training process....To all: you get what you pay for!!! Unfortunatly I found a cheap deal...the fish were not healthy.

Anyway...Gill flukes were visible in them!!! I found a recipe and unbelievably it works!!

7.5 Tablespoons of pure salt to one gallon of water (from your tank).
Drop in the fish and wait til they roll over!!!...less than 1 minute. OMG i thought I had killed them...but they were breathing.
Place them back in the tank, I did this 2 days in a row. The next day they were happy...within 3 days they seemed like new fish!!!!!...It works
But when they curled up and rolled over, my life flashed before my eyes...it was horrible...but they were and are ok!!! Never again...if you are looking for expensive fish...dont try to find a super deal except from friends.

This worked for me and at least one other person...it seems cruel as you monitor the fish...takes a dose time of under 1 minute.
Use with great care and caution and as a last resort, I am not a fish vet...but..It worked for me.

10gallonmadness

Woah, cool recipe!

aquarist48

Ted I moved your thread to the "cichlid/discus" section of the forum. I think it will help you to get more responses from other Discus members.
Thanks!
Ken (I hope they are doing well now!)

TedsTank

Thank you. 3 of 6 are left but as I said, I got what I paid for...and learned a sore lesson there....and, learned a med that can be useful..as for me it was traumatic.

My grand daughter is still tickled with the fish....so on some notible event fo her we are going to a discus breeder and PICK OUT, with their expience, 4 nice healthy discus...her choice.

aquarist48

Hello Ted. I'm glad your grand daughter is happy. I hate that you lost fish Best of luck with your new additions. I hope you can share some photos along the way.
Ken

torren

did you lost ur fish through this treatment of due to heavy infestation? as my fish are acting like they have gill flukes but not visiable i have been trying 7teaspoons to 11litres atm wanted to contact you on cause of death before i used ur measurements

when you says pure salt do you mean normal table salt?

fish_newbie

Gill Fluke is caused by bacteria, it is common and can cure quite easy. Your fish probably died because of extreme level of salt in the water. With 7.5tbsp/ gallon your water becomes even more salty than the water in the sea (and discus is pretty much a freshwater fish). It is very harsh and a very risky move on your fish.

I believe that Ted's method is a salt dip. But uses extreme amount. I'm not saying his way is wrong, I just want to also share another method of performing a salt dip that I've learnt that worked for me and many others:

"2 tablespoons per gallon water. ANY salt so long as there are no anti-clog additives. Iodised salt is safe, cooking salt is cheaper.

Mix in a clean bucket with water of the same temp or from the tank. Net fish and place into bucket. After 30 mins remove back to clean water, BUT if the fish rolls over before the 30 minutes is up then remove it straight away to clean water. (Many other methods of salt dip on the internet says you should wait until the fish roll over, but IMO that is way too harsh.)

I normally give the tank a good clean through when doing this or put them into a newly setup tank, but not everyone has the tankage.

The dip can be repeated daily (even twice daily) if needed for as long as necessary (well easily 2 weeks)."
By Connie from SimplyDiscus

This is only 1 way to treat gill fluke. You can also use commercial medication which are readily available at any good fish store. You can treat them with a med called Formalin and follow instruction on the bottle. If not, pimafix is another common one and its from API (same brand as the test kits), therefore very easy to find. But with medications, you always have to be careful and use with your own risk.

GoodLuck

TedsTank

I have 4 babies that now come to eat out of my hand!!!!!! The salt treatment did not hurt them...have never seen anything as disturbing to use, but it works!!

Yes I agree it seems extreme. When they curl and roll over i was sure I killed them...but within minutes of being plopped back into the tank they were fine.

I would think doing it 1 to 2 times a day for a couple of weeks would be more damaging to Discus, especially babies with flukes. I got my recipe from a Simply Discus post also.

Anyway this worked for me....it takes way less than 1 minute to treat them...did the little things one at a time.

I have always tried my best to avoid chemical mixes for anything in a tank. I have seen formaldahyde used at the Biological Lab near me, and would never drop a fish into any mixture of that stuff!!!

fish_newbie

hmm.. you didn't mention they were babies, LOL. Me myself I haven't use Formalin, as it is not available in Aus, but I've use pimafix plently of times and it works wonderfully. I also hate to use chemicals in my tank too, number of reasons. Most of the time when I see something wrong with my fish I just up the waterchange, and most of the time it works .