Newly Transferred Discuses are Laying on Side

[Brooke]

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 work at Mid-America Science Museum in Hot Springs, AR. We had an Amazon exhibit this summer with cardinal tetras, rummy nose tetras, hatchet fish, twig catfish, bleeding heart tetras, and two discus. We also had three ocellate river stingrays in their own tank. When the exhibit left, the fish stayed at the museum. The only option for them to survive was for us (the education department) to adopt them all. We are doing the best we can with limited recourses and knowledge. We would appreciate any advice you have. Yesterday we had to transfer all the fish from the tank that was included in the exhibit into new smaller tanks. We were able to transfer the fish with their old water. We found homes for two of the stingrays and most of the rummy nose tetras. Everyone seems happy except for the two discus. The discus are in a 55 gallon tank with the one small stingray and some bleeding heart tetras.


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).
We transferred them yesterday afternoon they seemed happy and were swimming normally. The discus even ate some bloodworms around 4:30. When we came into the office this morning discus were on their sides but still sort of swimming. Now they are laying on the bottom of the tank on their sides. One of them swims around occasionally but the other is not moving.

3. What medications/ treatments have you already tried and what were the results. Include dosage and duration of treatment.



Tank/Water

4. Tank size and ages, numbers and sizes of fish.
Tank size is 55 gallons. Two young discus (we've had them for three months and not sure how old they were when we got them, but they've doubled in size.), 12 bleeding heart tetras, and one baby ocellate stingray.

5. Water change regime (What percentage and how often).
We just transferred them yesterday. We acclimated the discus and the bleeding hearts to the stingray water by keeping them in their original water and adding 1-2 oz of stingray water every five minutes for an hour.

6. How long has tank been running? Is it bare bottom? If you have substrate, what type and how deep is it?
Less than 24 hours. There is fine sand on the bottom of the tank, about an inch deep.


7. Do you age your water? If you do for how long and what is the ph swing.
Not sure what this is? Should we be doing this?

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.

We use Tetra Easy Strips to test the water.

- temp _was 72 this morning but now is up to 79____

- ph _6.5

- ammonia reading _between 0-.5___

- nitrite reading __0__

- nitrate reading _20___

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 _100%___

- RO water ____


9. Any new fish, plants or inverts added recently.
Everything in the tank is new including a couple of plastic plants.


10. 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.

[pcsb23]

If there is ammonia present then you need to deal with that as a priority, even at a low pH high levels are not good and 5ppm is high.

Does the tank have a working bio filter?
Do you treat the new water for chlorine at all, i.e. use a de-chlorinator (such as prime or safe)?

The temp is too low for discus (though may have been a blessing in disguise), typically you should be aiming for 82f as good temp.

There may be other issues going on, but until the water is right everything else will just complicate things.

As for aging water and pH swing, this is the process where the new water is stored for a short time in a holding barrel where it can be heated and aerated - this will drive off any excess CO2 which allows the pH to stabilise. I'm less concerned about pH swings than most, discus are adapted to changing pH conditions, but being able to pre-heat the change water means they have less stress to deal with.

The likely reason they are laying flat is down to the temperature and poor water. Adding an air stone and slowly raising the temperature (82f) will help. But you will have to change water too as 5ppm of ammonia is toxic - and prehgeat the new water as well as de-chlorinate it.

[Brooke]

The ammonia reading was a typo. It should read 0-.5. Sorry about that! Yes we have a bio filter and the water temp is now at 80 degrees. We also added a small bubbler.

[pcsb23]

The ammonia reading was a typo. It should read 0-.5. Sorry about that! Yes we have a bio filter and the water temp is now at 80 degrees. We also added a small bubbler.

0.5 is way better than 5 - still may be a pointer that all is not right.

Hopefully as the temp increases they will regain their equilibrium. Did you see the bit about how do you de-chlorinate the water?

[Brooke]

Yes, thank you. We haven't added any new water, but when we do we will make sure to de-chlorinate it first. We currently have a 200 watt heater for the 55 gallon tank and it's still sitting at 80 degrees. Do we need to add another heater, replace the one we have with a more powerful one, or is 80 degrees ok?

[pcsb23]

80 is still a tad cool - 82f is really the min I aim for. If the heater is at max then maybe another is needed. Depending on the ambient room temp will depend on how powerful the heater needs to be. I'd have expected a 200W to cope fine in most places in a 55.

Are the fish up yet?

[Brooke]

Tank is up to 82 degrees now and the discuses are still down. One has been moving around a bit more, but the other is still very lethargic.

[pcsb23]

OK, keep temps at 82 and switch any over tank lights off. It may take a day or two, you should do a water change each day also, but use water that is up to temp to avoid any shock (a degree or two won't matter, but 10 will). How is the ray behaving? and how large is it compared to the discus? (I'd imagine it is quite small just yet but ...).

[Brooke]

Will do. The ray is a little under 5 inches in diameter and the discuses are about 3 inches. The ray is very active at the moment. She is skimming the sides of the aquarium (going up and down, up and down...). Is it ok to feed the ray and the bleeding hearts- or will it stress out the discuses too much? We've been feeding her earthworms and ghost shrimps.

[pcsb23]

I'd keep the ray well fed Whilst they look great together, they are not what I'd call ideal tank mates, basically if a ray can fit it in it's mouth it will! A sedentary discus may be an easy target. I cannot over stress the importance just now of maintaining as high a water quality as possible, that will mean changing water and changing a minimum of 33% daily for now (more is preferable at the moment). But use warmed water.

[Brooke]

Will do! Thanks for all your help! We're not worried about the tanks being pretty. Our concern was saving everyone from being flushed and fitting everyone in the tanks we could find. Now that we've done that we want to keep everyone alive and healthy until we will be able to afford bigger tanks. My boss, co-worker, and I have been paying for their equipment, food, and care out of pocket. One more question: why is it so important to change the water if it tests normal? We've been getting conflicting advice and I'm not sure what to do.

[pcsb23]

At the moment it isn't testing normal, there is a small amount of ammonia showing, unless you are using lab grade test there should be zero.

The benefits to changing water are numerous, discus require clean water, they are hugely tolerant hardness and pH and such, as long as it is clean and warm they are happy. Removing water removes pollutants and pathogens, at the moment your discus are stressed so their immune system will be down. Keeping the water clean now will minimise the risk of an opportunistic infection (i.e. one that wouldn't have happened if they were not stressed).

Once the fish have settled and with low stocking densities water changes can be scaled back, but basically changing water and keeping discus just about go hand in hand. There is a good debate in this thread here http://forum.simplydiscus.com/showth...-Water-changes if you can ignore some of the silliness

[Brooke]

Gotcha. Thanks for all the help! We did a partial water change and will see how they're doing in the morning.