Lucky goalkeeper

I want to share you a history, so not experienced discus keepers would learn from others mistakes.

I left my fish for short two nights staycation: beach pool, drinks and good food :) ... what can go wrong ?

What was my surprise when my son told me that one fish is missing from a breeding tank. “It’s impossible”, I though. I do have a lid!

I look around the tank, under it .. nothing ! Fish was indeed missing.
Is there cannibalism within discus? No way that other would eat another within two days... I keep searching.

I took closer into a container where I’m soaking my K1 media.
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Only after removing majority of it I found a fish! I said to myself it has to be deadly for him, as this media was cycling. But that lucky ******* was still alive.

So what had happened? I had a cover, but it’s light plastic, so he had to jump so heavily that manage to lift it and jump out of the tank.
Luckily there were a container below, so with a perfect trajectory he jumped into the media.
Luckily again (I did a test) nitrogen cycle has been finished and there were no amonia nor nitrite, only high ~40 nitrate.

Lucky fish is fine and no stressed, only hypnotic by a cone in a breeding tank.

I put a stone, so my lucky goalkeeper would not jump out again.

Please, please use a lid and not just some soft lead. It will save your fish!

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Great story. Great outcome. Great advice :thumbsup:

I guess not all similar stories have a happy end.

And you know what? It was not more than 4hours after I had moved him back to the breeding tank and they laid eggs! Hopefully my lucky man will have more luck this time and fertilize the eggs.

I only use glass lids on all my tanks. I've never known Discus to be jumpers but when they get spooked anything can happen. Glad you had that media tub in the right location and the smarts to dig a little deeper, lol!!!
NCH