Help with sick discus - 16 deaths in 3 weeks.

[Sparth]

I have 3 tanks, 20H, 2 are breeding pair and 1 had 14 babies that are about 1-1.5"ish. 3 Weeks ago, going on 4, my babies started dying. I moved the babies to the 20H, they ate like pigs. I made a new batch of discus food using beef (followed Hans recipe), everyone ate them fine even though they were fed with Turkey mixed before. A couple days later, the babies started freaking out, turning dark and hid in the corner. They still ate, but showed less interest. Food would be gone from the morning feeding by the time I went home from work. Next day, 3 dead in the morning and 1-2 dropped everyday. The adult discus are fine still, one pair even laid eggs during the first few days of baby deaths. Tested the water, everything seem normal. Does look like it's about .25 ammonia in the discus tank but I do at least 1 WC per day from aged water 55 drum barrel (Water are still conditioned with Prime and about 1-2 days old). I did a PP treatment, stopped the death for a day and then they started dropping. During the whole duration, babies were not eating. About a week after, something wiped out the whole tank. The babies showed no infections or anything. I'm thinking food poisoning so I threw away the batch of food, made new one out of the old fashion way, beef heart. The adult started to show signs. Getting spooked often, sometimes dashing, lost of appetite, fighting a lot and stopped breeding. 4 days ago, after a water change, one of my unproven pair was laying flat for awhile, it was late at night, I couldn't do anything. He was dead in the morning. The female is fine. A day after that, the male on my other tank was turning really dark so I thought they were getting ready to lay eggs but it was a bit strange. He hovered around the filter very close and looked like he was sick. I kept an eye on him. Next day, he was still doing that, not eating, dark and by nightfall, he was laying flat but still swam around. The female would come over and nudge him and he would get up and swam. Next day, I bought Furan-2 to treat all the tanks since there were some sort of contamination. I use the same python. Next day, the male was dead and showed a dark patch on his body. Now the female has some sort of scuff patch on her body as well, but she's doing fine. I have feed the 2 female for a couple days, since the treatment. I have 2 more doses left. I want to continue to treat until the female with the scuff on the side of her body heal...and then I'm back to square one if something comes up. I'm new to discus and treating them.



The Adult discus tank, I change the water 50% per day, sometimes 100%. The babies, I do 100% WC a day, sometimes twice.


Bare bottom breeding tank, white sides, the usual. I kept the babies in 10 gal prior to moving to the 20gal. The adults i have for over a year and moved to their breeding tanks for a couple months.


I aged my water, at least 24 hours, with double dose of Prime. PH does not swing, municiple water. However, the city did do a water maint. end of April. We have Chloramine.


8. Parameters and water source;

Note: Water Parameters are important in diagnosing problems within a tank. If you don't own test kits for the following information, you can purchase them, test your parameters and post this info as soon as possible.


- temp 88-89 for baby tank, 86 for adults

- ph 8.2-8.3

- ammonia reading 0 - .25

- nitrite reading 0

- nitrate reading 0

- municipal water

Any new fish, plants or inverts added recently?
Just the babies were new, from the same breeder as the 2 new female adults. I have the babies for 3 months, the female were 1-2 months


Please tell us what you feed your fish and how often. This can be critical information for solving the problem so be as specific as you can.
Babies, 5 times a day. Morning, Flakes food, before work, home made BH mix, 12PM - flake, 4PM, flake, 8PM BH mix.



Pictures to be added soon.

[Sparth]

123860123861123862 - Male SS - deceased

Female SS with scuff, in treatment

123863

[jeep]

You seem to be conditioning your water perfectly! The first thing I'm seeing is the presence of ammonia but no nitrates. Has something possibly compromised your bio filtration? Ammonia should be 0 and nitrates <5...

I'm wondering if something happened during the city water line maintenance, but you should be past that by now...

If the food was contaminated, I would think it should have passed by now since you threw away the mix.

When I have any issues, I always add 3-5 TBS salt per 10g and it never hurts, and almost always helps.

Whenever a tank crashes like this, it's usually water related. Hopefully some others will chime in soon...

[Sparth]

You seem to be conditioning your water perfectly! The first thing I'm seeing is the presence of ammonia but no nitrates. Has something possibly compromised your bio filtration? Ammonia should be 0 and nitrates <5...

I'm wondering if something happened during the city water line maintenance, but you should be past that by now...

If the food was contaminated, I would think it should have passed by now since you threw away the mix.

When I have any issues, I always add 3-5 TBS salt per 10g and it never hurts, and almost always helps.

Whenever a tank crashes like this, it's usually water related. Hopefully some others will chime in soon...

It might be the light angle of the bottle, but the ammonia is almost at 0, between the yellow and the 2nd yellow, but I don't think that's the issue. I've talked to several people near me and they don't have problems. I always add salt when I do WC, just a tps though. about 3 tps for the baby discus tank since they were dropping like flies. I don't know if the tank crash because I used the same water for all 3 tanks. the 4 adults were fine.

Oh, for some reason, might be treatment with general cure for the baby tank, but the TDS was 800. My water here is around 300. I did use Kent Discuss Essential but I have been using it for a year with the rock hard Florida water. I have stopped using it though. The TDS are still in the 320-340.

[jeep]

I deleted the last few posts. Sparth is not giving advise, he is asking for advise...

[danotaylor]

Dee it seemed to me that this member was seeking advice, not giving it. In light of that your comments come across as super harsh and unnecessary. Not that great a self representation for someone who has just joined the community.

[Sparth]

I am still seeking for advice btw...tomorrow will be the last day of Furan treatment. I will monitor them. I just don’t want them to die while waiting for answers.

[Dee1958]

First off Sparth stop with the 100 percent daily water changes on all of your tanks that is the most stressful thing you can do to a fish tank, throw away the furan,throw away the fresh beef heart and turkey,put your fry back in the ten gallon tank and by the way how big are the fry,do no more than a 30 percent water change a week ,try lowering your ph a touch to about 7 or slightly below, get you some new life spectrum growth and nls discus and if you send me your address I will send you some of the food I am feeding

[brewmaster15]

First off Sparth stop with the 100 percent daily water changes on all of your tanks that is the most stressful thing you can do to a fish tank, throw away the furan,throw away the fresh beef heart and turkey,put your fry back in the ten gallon tank and by the way how big are the fry,do no more than a 30 percent water change a week ,try lowering your ph a touch to about 7 or slightly below, get you some new life spectrum growth and nls discus and if you send me your address I will send you some of the food I am feeding

Dee,
Sorry but This is wrong. Its not good advice at all to give. The op is using aged water. You can do multiple 100% water changes on discus fry with aged water everyday .It is not a problem at all as a matter of fact its what many truly successful breeders and hobbyists do with their fry. .. so please dont advise people to do 30% water changes a week on fry.

And as for the food choices ...thats not the problem here either. You can feed nls if you want but the foods the op is feeding are fine choices for his fish and not a problem here.

Additionally your advice to lower the pH is wrong too. Dont mess with your pH . Its not necessary.and can cause pH bounce and stress.

You posted earlier you are new to discus? Please be sure that you take the time to learn about their care before advising others.


op..John ,Odds are you are having mini cycles going on.. When.we feed fry multiple feedings like that your bioload spikes from the ammonia excreted from the fish and the food in the water. These are very toxic to fry.The ammonia becomes more toxic as the pH goes up and yours is pretty high. Additional the ammonia increases you will get spikes of nitrites and may already have. These may go back down to zero but each time they spike the frytake up.the nitrites causing brown blood disease. Nitrites take 1-2 days for the fish to remove from their system so you get a cumulative affect. Brians advice on the salt is spot on as that will prevent nitrite uptake. Methylene blue will treat the nitrites in the fish.

My advice is increase your water changes..be sure not to over feed.Dont leave food in the water. Add more biological filtration. You didnt mention your filtration but adding some sponge filters can help give surface area for biological filtration.

Hth,
Al

[Sparth]

Thank you Brewmaster. My frys are long gone. I am trying to save my 2 female as their mates dropped within 3 days of each other. They showed no visible internal bacteria. The light batch on my SS female is smaller now. I am planning to do a full WC after today’s treatment, then feed them to see if they eat again.

As far as your filtration question, i am using sponge filters and airlines. I am thinking of switching to a sump though but I feel like I don’t know what to do when I have frys, since I don’t want the water to cycle the frys. Any suggestions?

[brewmaster15]

Definitely finish up your furan treatments and try to feed them sparingly at first...pick what ever food they liked best. Keep in mind that furan 2 knocks back your biofilter so carefully watch ammonia and nitrites and do lots of wc.

All.the behaviors you described are very common in nitrite and ammonia poisoning.

You mentioned the city did water maintenance at the end of April? Do you know what they did? We have had alot of members lose fish after maintenance events like line repairs. .. Reason being is they have to flush the lines after working on them . The effects can look like ammonia/nitrite poisoning too.

Its possible that they were monitoring the water quality and had to bump up the treatments. It might be a good idea to look into it.


As for the fry...I think your sponge filters are ok sump isnt needed and not something we use for fry tanks usually. You can use both sump and sponges but just build in a shutoff to bypass the fry tank when you have young fry.

Al

[Second Hand Pat]

Hi John, I am not sure putting sumps on a 20H is worth the trouble. With fry you definitely want to use sponge filters. Sorry to hear about your issues and hope the two females make it. I do find salt helpful when treating with furan 2.
Pat

[Sparth]

Brewmaster, I don’t know what exactly they did but I’ll find out. Several people live near me with frys are doing fine so I’m not sure if it’s really water related. Also if it were water related, would it crash all my tanks within days, not weeks?

They love the Hiraki Bloodworm but I only feed them once or twice a week. I’m afraid they get used to it and wont eat their normal food.

What do you think about the scuff and the dark patches? Some of my baby discus and red patches, like bruise marks but not dark patches, just off colors. I wish I can post videos here on my phone.

[brewmaster15]

John,
Because discus generate alot of slime coat to feed their fry they can sometimes come down with external bacterial infections. That patch sounds like one. This can be caused by water quality issues or even happen when the fry have been feeding on the parents but slow down or stop. All that excess slime coat is a buffet for bacteria. The fry are also susceptible to it . I your high pH water its more likely... so tank hygene is critical. Wipe down the tank walls regularly/daily.... gently rinse the sponges every few days...alternate the cleaning.

You can never have too many sponges.. I keep several per tank for my fry.. 4-5 per 55 gal.That may be excessive but it works really well.

Al

[brewmaster15]

On the blood worms... feed them it if its all they will eat. Get them healthy and then you can wean them onto other foods. There are quality options out there for food these days.

al

[Sparth]

I should have clarified. These 2 pairs never had babies. They only laid eggs and are young pair. Never had successful hatch. The frys i got from the same breeder from his 3R pair. i will try to do more cleaning. I do wipe regularly but not rinsing out the sponges often. Ill do that from now on. I am thinking of nuking my sponges with PP when treatment is over

[brewmaster15]

John, The pair doesnt need to carry fry.. just the act of spawning is enough and even thats not necessary. We see alot of external bacterial problems with discus. It even happens when you mix stock from different suppliers..most of the time it clears up on its own or with salt added...

Nuking your sponges with pp will probably not make a difference here... just rinse them real good and it should be ok.

hth,
Al

[Dee1958]

I'd like to say I respect everyone's opinion I just don't agree with all of them I am new to discus fry but have 40+years in the hobby so I know a little bit, any one can breed a discus that's the easy part once you have a pair it's raising the fry, and if you read my first post here in the community look at the answers I got, even brew master says yeah I'll help you never heard back from him the mistake I made was turning the fry loose in a big tank to early but all in all I think I'm doing pretty good I may have lost fifty percent on my first time around but remaining are growing by leaps and bounds from fry to a quarter in two months Thanks everyone for your help

[Second Hand Pat]

I'd like to say I respect everyone's opinion I just don't agree with all of them I am new to discus fry but have 40+years in the hobby so I know a little bit, any one can breed a discus that's the easy part once you have a pair it's raising the fry, and if you read my first post here in the community look at the answers I got, even brew master says yeah I'll help you never heard back from him the mistake I made was turning the fry loose in a big tank to early but all in all I think I'm doing pretty good I may have lost fifty percent on my first time around but remaining are growing by leaps and bounds from fry to a quarter in two months Thanks everyone for your help

Respectfully Dee but you never responded back to your own thread with queries for pics, tank, fish and food information. Perhaps you can provide some of the requested information.?
Pat

[Sparth]

I'd like to say I respect everyone's opinion I just don't agree with all of them I am new to discus fry but have 40+years in the hobby so I know a little bit, any one can breed a discus that's the easy part once you have a pair it's raising the fry, and if you read my first post here in the community look at the answers I got, even brew master says yeah I'll help you never heard back from him the mistake I made was turning the fry loose in a big tank to early but all in all I think I'm doing pretty good I may have lost fifty percent on my first time around but remaining are growing by leaps and bounds from fry to a quarter in two months Thanks everyone for your help

You may be in the hobby but discus are not the same. Some fish can be ok in an established tanks. Discus can too but for them to strive, grow and be healthy, definitely not bu doing WC once a week at 30%. Have you successfully breed discus, grew them out to adults? I agree with you that in smaller tanks, frys strive better. I moved them to my 20 because they were getting big. 14 1.5” discus aren’t really ideal for a 10gal tank. And with the bioload, feeding 5 times a day, do you really think 30% wc weekly will help? Especially when I have no filtration other than a sponger filter. Your first comment was awfully rude, let alone missed read my entire post thinking I am giving out advice for whatever reason. You asked questions when it was already stated. I appreciate your help but I went here for a reason and not on FB

[brewmaster15]

I'd like to say I respect everyone's opinion I just don't agree with all of them I am new to discus fry but have 40+years in the hobby so I know a little bit, any one can breed a discus that's the easy part once you have a pair it's raising the fry, and if you read my first post here in the community look at the answers I got, even brew master says yeah I'll help you never heard back from him the mistake I made was turning the fry loose in a big tank to early but all in all I think I'm doing pretty good I may have lost fifty percent on my first time around but remaining are growing by leaps and bounds from fry to a quarter in two months Thanks everyone for your help

Really? I tried to help you but read your own backposts.. you either dont make sense or dont bother to reply... but to call me out that I didnt help you. Thats just Royal BS.

http://forum.simplydiscus.com/showthread.php?135080-Juvenile-discus

You...Just two days ago.

Lol ol ol as a newbie as far as discus go the only reason I ask is that I received some juvenile discus and when I feed them they respond as though they don't know what food is maybe I received slow learners. Thanks Dee

Me


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Default Re: Juvenile discus
Stupid no. but they can be picky eaters if spoiled or if they are not eating what you are feeding they either don't like the menu or are sick.

Post up a few pics and give some more info as to the tank, fish and foods being offered and we can probably help get you past Newbie stage here.

Welcome to the forum!

Al

Turns out you were the one who never answered me when I tried to help you.

You have no clue how many people like you I and others here have tried to help. You come here for the help but refuse to actually listen to what more experienced discus keepers try to teach you.
You may have kept fish 40 , 50, .60 what ever years
now but your advice here was bad whether you want to hear it or believe me or not. Its not a personal attack on your general fish keeping experience but every fish species is different.My advice here is based on my experiences with Discus. ..not just fish. You can take or leave it with your fish...but as an admin, owner of the forum, and die hard discus nut thats spent years trying to help people succeed with discus I need to point out when advice is wrong with Discus. It may be hard to believe but I have raised one or two of them myself. Further discussion on this please pm me. Thank you.


John, I apologize for the thread hi-hijack


Al

[Dee1958]

All I can say is how many fry do you have left I was just giving you my opinion in trying to help adult discus are no big deal it's the fry and I have 50 percent still left next time I will not turn the fry loose in a big tank as they feed differently than other cichlids bottom line is as a first timer with discus fry I have 50 percent still remaining and their growing like there's no tomorrow from fry to quarter in 2 months and I am using my own fish recipe so I'm doing ok. I apologize if I came across as being rude or harsh but I surfed the forum and some of the things people are doing or being told to do just absolutely blows my mind. DEE

[Sparth]

No worries Al. It doesn’t seem like Dee read anything on what we said and just likes to argue. I think he might got the 30% weekly WC from Gabe...