Please help with my water parameters.

[tregarza]

New in the discus world I bought a discus about a month ago and I thought my aquarium was already established. but to my surprise it wasn't and the fish died. So I waited 1 month and kept 1 angel and 1 neon tetra that seems fine and eating very well. So I thought I'm ready for my Discus. I choose the more active one and brought it home.

I was careless enough by no testing the water before I bought the Discus. Right now its happening the same thing It happened to my first discus.

Hiding in the corner kind of clamp fins and no appetite.

Here's my water parameters please help with an approach how to correct my water. After I found out that I do have ammonia I added 20 mil of Amquel to help neutralized the ammonia.


Tank size 30 Gal 2 live plants and canister filter
Ph 7.6
Temp 81
Nitrate 5.0 ppm
Nitrite 0.2 ppm
Ammonia 0.5

Hardness ? but I know its hard water

Any help greatly appreciated.

[tregarza]

I found my TDS meter and it shows 600 ppm but my house has a water softener system and I'm not sure if the reading is correct. meaning that probably is salt instead of minerals.

[Melissa]

You might be better served if you post in the disease and illness section... There is a questionnaire to fill out that is stickied near the top that you should include in your thread there...

Your tank is not cycled.
There should be no ammonia or nitrite present. They are both very toxic and will kill your fish.
Also, discus should be kept in groups of 5-6 or more for social reasons. A single discus will be quite stressed by themselves under normal conditions, but you definitely have water issues to sort out that have put additional stress on your fish. You should get a good dechlorinator like Prime to get things under control while your tank finishes cycling... So many issues to fix here! Don't worry about water hardness... You just need to make sure your water is clean warm and STABLE. Don't fiddle with the ph or hardness... Large water changes can help remove the toxins and might save your fish... But theres no telling if your fish will recover from this even if you get your water under control. Under stress, opportunistic pathogens can take hold and your fish will likely get sick, assuming it wasn't already. Did you buy it at a local fish shop?


I'll keep my eye out for your post in the disease section...

[minajaguar]

you have three ways to solve this issue .. eliminate your fishes from the tank and wait till i cycled ... or buy some live bacteria product and add it it will save your fishes .. or keep the situation as it is a repeat partial water changes 25 % / 2 days to decrease the toxins effect keep temperature steady especially this period cause your fishes are under stress and may get a disease .. test your water parameters every 3 days ... till amonia nitrite = 0

[TURQ64]

Change ALL the water first...you are trying to establish a beneficial bacteria colony in the filtration media, not in the water...

[Skip]

Change ALL the water first...you are trying to establish a beneficial bacteria colony in the filtration media, not in the water...

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[Orange Crush]

buy some live bacteria product and add it it will save your fishes .. or keep the situation as it is a repeat partial water changes 25 % / 2 days to decrease the toxins effect keep temperature steady especially this period cause your fishes are under stress and may get a disease .. test your water parameters every 3 days ... till amonia nitrite = 0
1) Live bacteria products do not always work, even the ones that have good reputations because it depends on how they were transported, the temps its been at and how it has been stored. It never hurts to try this but you should never rely on it to save your fish.
2)You need to do more than 25% 2xs per day because you do not want to just reduce the amount of toxic amm and nitrIte but eliminate from your water. A 25% wc will put your amm at .375ppm wil is still toxic and as your tank cycles the amount of amm and nItes will keep increasing. I would change almost all of the water at least once per day.
3) testing every 3 days is a bad idea. You will not know if you are doing enough wc's unless you know what the #s are. Do a water change then test 6-8 hours later then do another wc if needed. When you get up in the morning test again and do a wc if needed. Repeat this until you have 0 amm and nItes and start to have some nitrAtes.

[jimg]

there are beneficial bacteria in the water column as well as the filter and tank itself. if you use dr timms or tetra safestart i do very little water changes and add a little substrate to the bottom. if you do too much wc's with them, you will remove most of what you put in, ( keep in mind they don't always work,so if it gets too high in a few days, it's not working). even if you want to just do wc's and add nothing, I would do 1 big change then change just enough daily to keep ammonia and nitrites as low as possible.If you already have nitrates, your almost there. changing too much water will take it longer. low levels will not harm the fish.If you have time and aged water (if necessary) then by all means change all water every day until cycled. what I am saying is no need to worry about low levels.

[Damaskeno Bryant]

Hello everyone,

Thanks for sharing your valuable suggestion, if you want to give really a good surprise, discuss you must have the water parameters correct or matching closely to the place of where you are to buy .

Nice to meet you
Damaskeno Bryant

[Trier20]

I would get the water up to 84-86 as well.my discus seem to get all bent out of shapw if the water is below 82. I've also used the tetra safe. It worked out great for me. Good luck


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