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Brianjim
02-01-2016, 10:29 AM
I have not had Discus in a while, but recently my Discus seem to get frightened for no reason. Unless they are seeing shadows that spook them. I do a 50% water change every week in a 185g. The fish seem fine and healthy and eat and beg for food. I can just be sitting watching T.V.and I will hear splashing and a Discus rapidly swimming around in the aquarium and sometimes just in circles. They have even damaged themselves ramming in to the glass or driftwood. Then for weeks no issues. I do have a wooden top covering the aquarium except for a 6 in. space in the back. Over the last 6 months I have found 4 Discus had jumped out. I have started adding floating plants to cover the top to see if this helps. Anyone have any clue as to what could be making them do this? I will be adding glass tops. Well established tank temp. 82, 0 nitrates, o ammonia. I do have 6 Rose Lined Sharks, 1 Cardinal Tetra, a few Bristlenosed Plecos, and a group of Assassin Snails that must be spawning. My MTS are just about all gone.

Akili
02-01-2016, 10:52 AM
Where is the tank located and the how high off the floor the tank is? Also can you provide the type of water they are in(Tap,RO, RO mix,pH and hardness)?

Phillydubs
02-01-2016, 11:10 AM
A few things jump out to me... One... and always one... water changes... Once a week just never seems to cut it for discus and I would try my best to up that if you can... Or up the % for that one weeker, but ideally you should be doing 2-3... I get your test results seem fine but still, thats always the go to and a change in water params could cause this...

Second are the sharks... Those roselines are fast moving and non-stop swimmers... If the discus are resting or trying to and that school comes darting by, it is going to spook them and they will def dart and cause issues...

You can try egg crate or mesh over that opening... Seems if there is a spot they will find it... Even with glass tops, that space between the HOB if you have one I have heard of people loosing fish that way...

dprais1
02-01-2016, 11:12 AM
I had similar experience. It coincided with some road work including water line work on my street. Had to use RO water for a few weeks, which solved the problem. when the road work was done the problem with my tap water disappeared.

Brianjim
02-01-2016, 01:11 PM
I was doing a 75% water change and that seemed to trigger them so that is why I cut back. I use tap water. Same water I used when I had Discus before. They and my Angels spawned all the time. It is near a window, but there are curtains. I thought about the Roseline Sharks, but they don't really get close to each other. I did have some Odessa Barbs that I moved out thinking they might be nipping at them. I have been able to watch them just take off for no reason. No other fish are around them. After it is over they will go sit behind a piece of slate for a couple of hours then come out.

Akili
02-01-2016, 01:32 PM
Few years I had tank not far from the window with curtains and still found that my Discus were skittish by shadows casted every time a bird flew by or wind shaking the tree branches I lined the window with automobile window-tinting material which made the room darker. That stopped the Discus from sudden darting.

DISCUS STU
02-01-2016, 02:06 PM
In any event, tanks need to be covered. Discus can and do jump out of their tanks.

Cosmo
02-01-2016, 05:12 PM
In any event, tanks need to be covered. Discus can and do jump out of their tanks.

I was having a conversation with a local Discus keeper and was surprised when she mentioned she had had one jump out of the tank - Last time that happened to me was probably 30 years ago and happened in the middle of the night.

CliffsDiscus
02-01-2016, 05:42 PM
I was having a conversation with a local Discus keeper and was surprised when she mentioned she had had one jump out of the tank - Last time that happened to me was probably 30 years ago and happened in the middle of the night.


Hi Jim,
Its been awhile good to see your back.

Cliff

Cosmo
02-01-2016, 05:45 PM
Hi Jim,
Its been awhile good to see your back.

Cliff

Hey Cliff! Thanks!!
Good to see you're still around :)
So many people I have to lookup and see if they're still here ... like going to "old home week" :)

CliffsDiscus
02-01-2016, 05:47 PM
Last time I saw some jumpers were at a discus breeders garage, as soon as the electric garage open the Discus started to jump right out of the tanks,
the keeper took off his hat to catch the flying Discus.


Cliff

DISCUS STU
02-02-2016, 12:05 PM
Beware of Flying Discus!

I've repeated this story a few times but after looking for one of my Wilds, w/o any luck, I looked down to see that it had jumped in the middle of the night into a 5 gal. bucket of RO water that happened to be standing next to the tank, and the water was fairly warm as it was summer.

No problem and the fish was placed back into the mother ship.

rickztahone
02-02-2016, 03:28 PM
Beware of Flying Discus!

I've repeated this story a few times but after looking for one of my Wilds, w/o any luck, I looked down to see that it had jumped in the middle of the night into a 5 gal. bucket of RO water that happened to be standing next to the tank, and the water was fairly warm as it was summer.

No problem and the fish was placed back into the mother ship.

Must have been a married discus :laugh:

Cosmo
02-02-2016, 03:31 PM
last time i saw some jumpers were at a discus breeders garage, as soon as the electric garage open the discus started to jump right out of the tanks,
the keeper took off his hat to catch the flying discus.


Cliff

That must have been quite a sight!!! lol


must have been a married discus :laugh:

rofl:D

Cosmo
02-02-2016, 03:33 PM
Beware of Flying Discus!

I've repeated this story a few times but after looking for one of my Wilds, w/o any luck, I looked down to see that it had jumped in the middle of the night into a 5 gal. bucket of RO water that happened to be standing next to the tank, and the water was fairly warm as it was summer.

No problem and the fish was placed back into the mother ship.

You're lucky.. the last jumper I had jumped into the fireplace in the middle of the night :( Didn't survive :(

rickztahone
02-02-2016, 03:47 PM
You're lucky.. the last jumper I had jumped into the fireplace in the middle of the night :( Didn't survive :(

Bet it smelled good in the morning though?

DISCUS STU
02-02-2016, 05:06 PM
You're lucky.. the last jumper I had jumped into the fireplace in the middle of the night :( Didn't survive :(

Fried Discus anyone! :( It was really incredible to see this fish had jumped out of the water and landed in a bucket of relatively warm RO water!

Las Vegas
02-02-2016, 06:50 PM
I had similar experiences with the "dashing and jumping" discus. Some 25 or more years ago I had discus fish. They were setup in a 75 gallon tank with a couple of potted live large sword plants. I had the HOB and canister filter set up. I think I had 6 discus back then with other fishes like tetras and angel fish. A couple of bottom fish, some kind of sucker and some kuli snakes. I fed the fish, some kind of discus pellets, frozen worms of some sorts(can't remember what kind) some flakes. I kept the water temp I think at 80 degrees, I had a temp gage with the green section in it and I think that was the correct temp you were suppose to keep the water temp at. But I would do 50% wc weekly. During the first year, I lost 3 or more discus plus almost all the tetras and angel fish. I remember ordering more discus through a discus magazine. We didn't have internet back then, so if you didn't read about it in a book or magazine, you were basically lost, given advise from the LFS people or learned through experience. So like a lot of other aquarium people you go through the dying fish syndrome, the ick problems, and the one day a fish "just died for some unknown reason". One day I'm watching tv and hear water splashing from the fish tank. I see my most loved orange color discus dashing around like it's being chased by a barracuda or something! Then BANG! It smashes it's self into the glass and dies. Other times, I've seen or heard my other Discus bumping the top glass cover. I used to think that they were trying to eat the water drops that would collect on the glass top. I ordered a couple of books specifically on Discus, from some Dr. Bergman(or something like that) I think he was a German Discus specialist. Now I learn about how critical water conditions are. I start using my weekly aged barrel tap water with the "instant water conditioning" stuff. You know, it says will soften and provide the proper water conditions and nutrients that your discus need to thrive. Eventually I purchased more discus and notice how much healthier the fish get. But the "Discus Dash and top Bump" still happens every now and then. And they still die. My ex-wife yells at me a lot about how I spend too much money and time on my aquarium hobby.(But that's another story) I ended up giving up the last few discus and giving the tank and stuff away. Now that I'm remarried to a wonderful woman for 20 years now, I'm retired and started Discus again. I've purchased what appear to be 4 pigeon blood discus from the LFS. Two are orange with black halo's and two are yellow with black halo's. They have a little black peppering on the face section. There are also two tiger stipe loaches and two Angel fish which I have recently resold to the LFS for store credit and to make room in the presently bb 25 gal tall tank. I use a home made canister type bio filter that I made from watching You-Tube (thank goodness for the internet now!) and another large HOB for water cleaning/polishing. But the most important thing to me, I use ONLY R/O water. I do 50% wc two to three times a week. I vacuum all the bottom fish crap out of the tank with the water changes. Tap water has been medically proven to be such a bad health risk. I won't drink it, so I won't subject my babies to it. I do not use any chemicals their water, No Chem mix, conditioner, nothing. The minerals that they supposedly need, eh,,, I feed them Live blood worms and frozen beef heart. I tried the special discus pellet food, but they won't eat it. So any minerals that they supposedly need, they can get it from the food. Now that I've been taking care of my LFS fish for over a year, I have not had one problem with them at all. No disease, No dashing, No jumping. Oh also no Plants. I do have a piece of drift wood with algae growing on it. So my opinion with experience tells me, do not use Tap water. You just don't know what's in it but we do know there is a long term effect. Tap water changes so quickly that when it does, you'll know about it when your Discus are reacting and usually it's not in a good way. Other people on this forum will tell you Tap water is fine, blah, blah, blah,,,,. Ok, good for you people. Go ahead and have a drink or two. What do you mean you only drink bottled water? Hmm strange??

Phillydubs
02-02-2016, 07:57 PM
Stu- what did the judges give him on his dive? All 10s I hope! Haha

That's a really crazy story... Talk about luck!

Jack L
02-02-2016, 08:36 PM
The fish jumped into a fireplace!

Good luck topping that story... Dang

Cosmo
02-02-2016, 10:45 PM
Bet it smelled good in the morning though?

lol, the fire was out :p I heard something around 4 in the morning and got up - the tank lid was up but I couldn't find any fish so I went back to sleep. When I was on my way out the door to got to work I found him in the ashes - amazingly still alive. Since I didn't have time, I cleaned him up a bit then swirled him in the tank water for a bit to get water through the gills them left him in the tank and went to work. He was dead when I got home :(

DISCUS STU
02-03-2016, 12:44 PM
Stu- what did the judges give him on his dive? All 10s I hope! Haha

That's a really crazy story... Talk about luck!

THIS judge gave him a 10! Really incredible luck. My other jumpers weren't so lucky...:(