Had another jumper - geez!

[William1]

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The pic above is of Willy, my discus that jumped out of the tank, flopped into the kitchen, got himself a snack off the floor, (I try to be neat I swear, but I do make a mean bacon sandwich), then made enough noise that I figured out there was a fish on my kitchen floor. He was out of the tank for thirty minutes or so, and this pic is from the day after showing how he lost his slime coat. He had a stamp sized patch on both sides that went away in two days or so. Back to Willy later.
Yesterday I had another guy jump out. The guys were showing all their bars and swimming more aggressively than I've ever seen them. I was kind of watching TV and the tank at the same time. I later figured out that my CO2 tank is running low and the bubble rate had gone way up. Have to check this stuff every day. I think the fish were stressed, which caused the agitated swimming. I had changed some water and left the ceiling tile grid open on one end of the tank. (The side not by the kitchen). Well one guy jumped out. I was watching TV and heard what I thought was a Cory gulping air at the surface and hitting the grid, which happens. Couple times more and I start counting discus. I'm supposed to have eight. I only see seven. There he is! On the floor, for probably close to ten minutes. Put him back in the tank, of course he was stunned. Sunk to the bottom, came back up and sucked air, then I touched him and he swam back down. This is an interesting characteristic of my fish I would like to share. I have eight wild Uatuma blues, and they are a very tight knit group. What I mean by that is when one guy is down, the other fish will come by and hang out with him like buddies till he's ok. It reminds me of dolphins or whale behavior, or elephants even. Well, I saw it on tv. Seriously, they seem to look out for each other. I noticed this the first day they arrived and two guys were kind of struggling after shipping and the other guys would come over and kind of urge them, snuggle maybe, and hang out with the guy hurting till he came around. Same this time. I have a theory they all got scooped up in the same net. I don't even know which guy it was who jumped out. No marks this time. And I have seven super healthy fish. Amazing. I say seven because there is one guy, who I suspect may be Willy, who is a bit sickly. I had a minor water parameter issue shortly after he did his high dive act, when I let my cannister go too long, then cleaned it too well, I didn't rinse out the filter pads in tank water, so I had a mini cycle, which I believe may have stressed out Willy in his weakened state. He doesn't eat much, only freeze dried tubifex for some reason, and his bars are showing most of the time. But he is eating and is still scrappy. But he most likely will never reach his potential. And he will always be my hero. Long may he swim.
So that's my story and I'm stickin to it. Have fun all you discus nuts!

[two utes]

You can avoid all this drama by making sure you replace the covers once your water changes have been completed....not that hard really?

[Quintin]

Test your water parameters. Something wrong

[Filip]

Buy some better 2 stage co2 regulator with pH controller if you must run co2 .
EOTD can kill your precious discus next time .

[Akili]

Buy some better 2 stage co2 regulator with pH controller if you must run co2 .
EOTD can kill your precious discus next time .

Filip what is EOTD Abbreviation?

[Filip]

Filip what is EOTD Abbreviation?

Akilli , its a very common abbrevation in planted forums.
"End of tank dump" is when the pressurized co2 tank runs close to its end it starts to release much larger quantities of Co2 in the tank and there are many reports of totall disasters in the tank due to this matter.

Professional 2 stage regulators with pH controllers prevents this phenomena .

[Second Hand Pat]

I was actually going to suggest that perhaps CO2 not be run on this tank William. Guessing the reason for the jumpers is due to running CO2. I am not CO2 or planted tank savvy but doesn't running CO2 affect ph and can cause wild swings with the ph hence the jumpers? Might be time to place the needs of the discus first.
Pat

[Akili]

Thanks Filip!!

[William1]

The first jumper was due to me startling the fish by clumsily putting my hand in the tank too fast. He went right through the grid. I admit sometimes I forget to put the cover back on. It happens. Yes, the CO2 bottle is at the end. I usually keep an eye on it. This day I didn't. It happens. I do keep a pretty good eye on my tank mostly. I work at home and I change water twice a day. The fish will tell you if something is wrong. Everyone is doing really well. Getting big and more aggression is showing up. This should be fun to watch. Cheers, BK

[Keith Perkins]

The first jumper was due to me startling the fish by clumsily putting my hand in the tank too fast.

He was out of the tank for thirty minutes or so...

[William1]

He seriously was out of the tank for thirty minutes, at least. I have the LED lights that increase and fade in intensity when turned on and off. Like a sunrise/sunset effect. This takes forty minutes from start to finish. Willy jumped when the lights were at full intensity, I discovered and put him back in the tank very near to the end of the shut down cycle. That gives a pretty good timeline. I agree it's amazing. Tough fish.

[aquadon2222]

I have a 4' x 4' open top with 25 discus, they do their peck and tag games constantly and every now an again one will go airborne. I lost a couple of fish early on, but was told that when discus panic, they swim straight into the glass, and go straight up and over. I put a 1" plexiglass interior rim on the top of my tank and have had no jumpers since, although presumably they have a pretty good heacdhache after running into the plexiglass.