Help a discus newbe out!

[Luc]

Hey, i'm new to discus, and to the site, and was looking for some help before anything goes seriously wrong!

I recently bought a couple of runt discus from a commercial breeder, trying to start out without anuthing too precious (i should add that i've been keeping cichlids for the past couple of years, and studying and planning for discus for at least four to six months). Within the next few days, they were eating vorasciously in a 30g with some other tetras and such as tankmates, with an eheim with 130gph output, planted tank, and twice a week water changes. After about a week, they stopped eating so well, and hid more of the time (i also added at this time two dwarf gouramis as tankmates) One died soon after. i assumed it was poor stock, as i found no diseases, and water perameters were at 0- for nitrites, ammmonia, and phosphates. I was given two other healthy runts to keep him company for a while, but he died before they reached the tank.
One of these new runts followed the same pattern, and died yesterday, after i mmoved them to an 80 gallon tank i was readying. The other is fine, but is now eating as the others were initially, but i have yet to witness one of his bowel movements...could it be a really bad bout of Hex? Is the answer in the end of a bottle of metronidazole?
Please, save my fish! this is truly terrible!

[Carol_Roberts]

The answer is to quarantine all new fish for 6 weeks in a barebottom tank.

You had two inexpensive runt discus eating voraciously for about a week. You added two gouramis and one discus died within a few days? Then the second discus died before you could add two more runts. Now a third runt has died.

That's not hex. They slowly starve to death with hex over a period of months. Sounds like the gourami brought a disease that the discus could not tolerate.

[Howie_W]

Hi Luc,

Sorry to hear about your fish.

If you are new to keeping discus, one thing you should keep in mind is that they are schooling fish, and are best kept in a group of six or more.

Carol is right about your mix of fish in your tank...you may very well have introduced something to the discus that slowly killed them.

If you're just starting out with discus, its best to gain experience by raising a group of them on their own in a bare bottom tank. After you become familiar with them it's much easier to make them part of a community tank.

Howie

[Luc]

Okay, thanks, i'll have to ditch the other fishes, i guess. The last fish is doing quite well, as far as i can tell, at least, and he is quite attentive and bright, moreso than when he was first in the tank (could he have recovered from an ailment where the others did not?)
anyway, assuming i drop the other fish (all of which were recomended to me in a pretty decent book on discus)am i good to go ahead and pick up about three more quality discus at the end of the week, and if so, what sort of quarantine period would be recommended for them, given i have only one other discus in the display tank?

Thanks a lot for all the help

[Northwestcoastdisc]

hi Luc,

I am sorry about lose your fish. you can get better fish. you can conntact Jason or Barb. They have great fish.

Barb's e-mail address is bnewell@cogeco.ca
Jason's e-mail address is jason@superiordiscus.com

both guy are having great discus stuffs also both guy are very nice.

I have some fish but they are not ready to go.

HTH

Duncan

NWCD

[DiscusFevaa]

Hey Luc,
If your in the toronto area contact barb as she sells very good quality discus for a good price....Being a newbie also I would say that in my experience doing frequent water changes would help your Discus' immune system and often recover from minor diseases such as flukes and ICH..and be carefull on what you add on your tank....I have been lucky so far i added some rummys and neons on my tank for 3 weeks now without QT(if it's up to me i would but I could only afford one tank right now and my parents are not to fond of the idea) and nothing bad has happened...

[Luc]

Thanks so much!
if i were to quarantine the gouramis (i now have the facilities to do so) for a few weeks (six, was it) and fed them some garlic, as well as formalin/malachite green in their regular diet, would they be worth keeping? I'd rather not have to be rid of everything, though if there is signifiganct risk, i will.

it was really terrible loosing those fish, but i hpe that with this info, and with some really good fish, that's the end of it!
Thanks you!

Luc