Lucyn
- #1
I see a common theme on this thread that the majority, or at least a lot of people come here to seek help for their ill fish. In the days of urgent needs, time to time it can be too late. Sometimes it can be a bit depressing when someone's prized fish didn't pull through, and I'd like to tell a little story about a successful experience of mine, if you're interested. Encouragement at least, because sometimes it can seem like everything is going wrong in our hobby.
Around 6 months to a year ago when I had just started my interest in Discus, I was looking for my first Discus to see if I can even mange it. After countless hours of research, I thought I was more than ready, so I took my shot. Took a trip to my LFS, and this one Discus caught my eye, no particular reason other than I felt that connection. If you've ever had that fish, or any pet for that matter, that just catches your eye and you tell yourself, "I'm taking him home". But there was a catch, a pretty steep one. He was nearly completely black, couldn't even tell he had a pattern, didn't even know what strain he was, but I felt nothing but guilt for the little guy. I talked to the manger at the department down to half the price of the fish, since he honestly thought he was going to die and I wanted to give him a chance. It would break my heart to just give up on the guy and turn my shoulder, I'm not one for culling fish, typically and personally. I know this goes against everything when picking out new Discus fish, ESPECIALLY for my first ever Discus, but I at least had to try. At least if I knew I could nurture an extremely sick Discus to full health, I could keep Discus at a minimum.
I took the little guy home, acclimated him as quickly as possible and started treatment. A run of erythromycin, and light salt. I changed his water in a 29 gallon tank 90% twice a day everyday before I left for work, and when I got home. Surprisingly, after two weeks he looked absolutely stunning, I thought I was finished treatment so I stopped, little did I know the bacterial disease was not completely killed off. After a week or two of a completely healthy, eating like a pig Discus, he was back to square one. I had grown a bond with this fish already, I felt nothing but remorse at this point. I had gotten other Discus at the time, they were all picking on him, he was not eating, back to being completely black and extremely labored breathing. Once moved to a separate tank I started treatment once again, just twice the salt I had previously used. I treated and changed twice the water for instead of two weeks, a whole month. After carefully feeding for that time, feeding him piece by piece of a pellet, netting out any poop as soon as I'd see it, he was finally back to his old self, once again, the hard work finally paid off.
Around a week later, once he got his appetite back I encountered another obstacle. He was absolutely starving, once getting his appetite back he ate way too much compared to the others and had some very bad bloat. Swimming upside down almost as if his swim bladder was injured, a marble sticking out of his stomach with extremely labored breathing. I acted fast, filled a bucket of water the same temp as the tank, plopped him in and treated with a table spoon of Epsom Salt per gallon, giving him the bath for 30 minutes. Put him in a separate QT tank, around 15 minutes later I never saw more poop in my entire life come out of a fish, lol. This was by far the scariest experience out of all the times nurturing the fish, I really thought he wasn't going to make it this time. Come to find out, he pulled through, once again.
To this day, a half a year later, he is by far the Alpha of my chain of command out of my 5 Discus, soon to be 6. Not to mention the most gorgeous, anytime I show someone new to my tank, their eye automatically directs to him, every time people are caught in awe. He's now the biggest, most personable (not to mention my favorite, but don't tell the others shhhh), fish that I own at this moment. I don't know of too many people that can pet their Discus, pick them out of the water without them evening fighting, he couldn't trust me more, and that makes me so happy. The pictures inserted below are him the day I got him, vs today. Hope I could improve someones day with this little story, thank you for taking the time to read it.
Around 6 months to a year ago when I had just started my interest in Discus, I was looking for my first Discus to see if I can even mange it. After countless hours of research, I thought I was more than ready, so I took my shot. Took a trip to my LFS, and this one Discus caught my eye, no particular reason other than I felt that connection. If you've ever had that fish, or any pet for that matter, that just catches your eye and you tell yourself, "I'm taking him home". But there was a catch, a pretty steep one. He was nearly completely black, couldn't even tell he had a pattern, didn't even know what strain he was, but I felt nothing but guilt for the little guy. I talked to the manger at the department down to half the price of the fish, since he honestly thought he was going to die and I wanted to give him a chance. It would break my heart to just give up on the guy and turn my shoulder, I'm not one for culling fish, typically and personally. I know this goes against everything when picking out new Discus fish, ESPECIALLY for my first ever Discus, but I at least had to try. At least if I knew I could nurture an extremely sick Discus to full health, I could keep Discus at a minimum.
I took the little guy home, acclimated him as quickly as possible and started treatment. A run of erythromycin, and light salt. I changed his water in a 29 gallon tank 90% twice a day everyday before I left for work, and when I got home. Surprisingly, after two weeks he looked absolutely stunning, I thought I was finished treatment so I stopped, little did I know the bacterial disease was not completely killed off. After a week or two of a completely healthy, eating like a pig Discus, he was back to square one. I had grown a bond with this fish already, I felt nothing but remorse at this point. I had gotten other Discus at the time, they were all picking on him, he was not eating, back to being completely black and extremely labored breathing. Once moved to a separate tank I started treatment once again, just twice the salt I had previously used. I treated and changed twice the water for instead of two weeks, a whole month. After carefully feeding for that time, feeding him piece by piece of a pellet, netting out any poop as soon as I'd see it, he was finally back to his old self, once again, the hard work finally paid off.
Around a week later, once he got his appetite back I encountered another obstacle. He was absolutely starving, once getting his appetite back he ate way too much compared to the others and had some very bad bloat. Swimming upside down almost as if his swim bladder was injured, a marble sticking out of his stomach with extremely labored breathing. I acted fast, filled a bucket of water the same temp as the tank, plopped him in and treated with a table spoon of Epsom Salt per gallon, giving him the bath for 30 minutes. Put him in a separate QT tank, around 15 minutes later I never saw more poop in my entire life come out of a fish, lol. This was by far the scariest experience out of all the times nurturing the fish, I really thought he wasn't going to make it this time. Come to find out, he pulled through, once again.
To this day, a half a year later, he is by far the Alpha of my chain of command out of my 5 Discus, soon to be 6. Not to mention the most gorgeous, anytime I show someone new to my tank, their eye automatically directs to him, every time people are caught in awe. He's now the biggest, most personable (not to mention my favorite, but don't tell the others shhhh), fish that I own at this moment. I don't know of too many people that can pet their Discus, pick them out of the water without them evening fighting, he couldn't trust me more, and that makes me so happy. The pictures inserted below are him the day I got him, vs today. Hope I could improve someones day with this little story, thank you for taking the time to read it.
