Skinny Discus

Hello everyone,

Thank you for reading and hopefully helping me with my current problem, I already lost one of my fishes and I don't want to loose a second one.

Problem

1. Please explain the problems with your fish. When did you notice the problems and did anything unusual happen that you think started them?
I have had 5 discus since over a year now (13 months), they all get along with their hierachy well stablished of course. About a week ago I noticed one of my discus (the number 2 in the hierarchy) was really skinny altough he was eating normally every time I fed them. I didn't gave to much atention and one week later he passed away :(
Now I just noticed the same situation with another one of my discus, he eats well but its getting really skinny and now he stays most of the time by the corner of the aquarium (except when its time to eat, he immediately approaches to the lid)

2. Symptoms (i.e. turning dark, excess slime, not eating, clamped fins, flashing, darting, clamped gills, white/yellow/green poop, hiding, headstanding or tailstanding, white on tips of fins, rotting or fungus, blisters/white zits on fish, bloated, cloudy eyes, wounds).
I don't see anything other that skinny body.

3. What medications/ treatments have you already tried and what were the results. Include dosage and duration of treatment.
nothing


Tank/Water

4. Tank size and ages, numbers and sizes of fish.
33 gal / 125 lts
4 discus fish now sadly
1 is around 5 inches the rest between 4 and 4.5 inches

5. Water change regime (What percentage and how often).
weekly changes of 40% water

6. How long has tank been running? Is it bare bottom? If you have substrate, what type and how deep is it?
Tank has been running since 3 years
I have fluval stratum substrate
approx 2 inches deep

7. Do you age your water? If you do for how long and what is the ph swing.
not sure about this question, I don't have pH swings, I use reverse osmosis water

8. What type/brand water conditioner do you use? Do you add it to the tank or aging barrel? How much do you use?
I use Seachem Prime and Seachem stability during water changes

9. 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 __30C / 80F___

- ph __6.0___

- ammonia reading _0ppm___

- nitrite reading _0ppm___

- nitrate reading _60ppm___

What type of water or combinations of water sources do you use? If it is an RO/tap/well water mix, please list percentages in the mix.

- well water ____

- municipal water ____

- RO water _100%___


10. Any new fish, plants or inverts added recently.
nothing

11. 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.
Tetra Color Tropical Granulates and Brine shrimp every other weekend


12. Include any pictures or videos you have which shows the symptoms. If you can't add them to this post, please provide a link to them.

Worms. Tank size is way to small and your water change routine is no where near enough. Especially since it only a 30g tank. That size would need 50% daily. Those discus need help!

Over the past year these fish have been stressed to their limit. 1 week between 40% WC with just RO water only, would make the water unstable, depleted, full of DOC's and especially ph cause it would have no or very little Kh buffering and hence the high nitrates. It's amazing that the tank hasn't PH crashed by now. 6 ph is probably lower at times and 30c=86f so that has been off as well. What I've read about especially about discus that nitrates stunt young fish. The substrate is not the best for young growing discus either. I think it's a dirty water issue. They just didn't grow up in healthy environment to look healthy.

Thank you for your answer, what surprises me is that I see no signs of stress in my fishes, they have high appetite and they are very social, no changes in color either.
I will perform daily water changes as suggested and try to move them to a bigger aquarium asap...
Thanks again

They may look ok to you but when you see and read about discus every day like some of us. Your water might look good. But even with plants the nitrates are high, so nitrates are really not a good indicator on water quality in this case. One can see poor, in between or high quality discus. The quality usually comes with many large frequent WC's, feeding and maintenance. Every body learns on this site. This is a good example for the new comers; what not to do when growing out discus. Why RO water in the first place?

The municipal water where I live is very hard with a pH above 8 and a the GH and KH also way to high for discus, that is why I got the RO filter combined with some almond leaves in the filter and with driftwood.
Is there any recomendation instead using RO water?

Please look around at other posts here. These discus are not doing well for being over a year old. Listen to the comments others have made. Your water is not too hard for discus if you keep it clean. That is an old myth. Your planted tank and water change regimen is probably not clean enough for your discus. It's likely they are barely getting by and there is not much you can do to help them.

These are pics of locally bought discus around the same age as yours.Attachment 133766Attachment 133767Attachment 133768. The first one is what your may have developed into. When smaller it had similar markings.

You got the sunken forehead right above the eye and the skinny body, this usually come from low maintenance. The water may look clean but most of the dirt is in the gravel. Try not using R/O it's just dead water.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by RoPa87

Thank you for your answer, what surprises me is that I see no signs of stress in my fishes, they have high appetite and they are very social, no changes in color either.
I will perform daily water changes as suggested and try to move them to a bigger aquarium asap...
Thanks again

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I don't mean any offense by this, but your fish are the definition of stress in discus. Though they could have been in really rough shape when you first got them. Do you have any pictures from early on? How much have they grown?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by RoPa87

The municipal water where I live is very hard with a pH above 8 and a the GH and KH also way to high for discus, that is why I got the RO filter combined with some almond leaves in the filter and with driftwood.
Is there any recomendation instead using RO water?

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My municipal water has a pH of 8.3 and GH and KH both in the 18-20 degree range and my discus are just fine: http://forum.simplydiscus.com/showth...st-discus-tank

Here's a short thread about my water where I was 'helped along' the route of just using tap water instead of playing with RO: http://forum.simplydiscus.com/showth...gh-pH-question

I don't know how to go about switching them from RO over to tap, I'm guessing you shouldn't do that all at once, but someone else would need to comment there.

Replace the RO you take out during WC with aged tap. Your fish will be happy, don't worry,