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Thread: New Discus help

  1. #1
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    Default New Discus help

    Problem

    1. I just picked up my shipment of 5 discus fish, about 25 cardinal tetra and about 8 rummy nose tetra yesterday morning. They were in the shipping box for 20 hours and their water was cold. The one I'm most concerned for is a red checkerboard panda whose bag was sideways. The tetras had some dead ones in the bag and some of the tetras have ick.. I removed the sick ones into a 10 gallon hospital tank but they died pretty quick.


    2. Symptoms: The red checkerboard pandas one eye looks like the top is squished or has a growth or something, her face has a dark coating on it, she looks like she has more slime than the others. She hasn't pooped yet but a few of the others have and it was white and stringy(maybe from not eating?). I placed them into the tank yesterday at 11AM and they haven't really eaten anything yet....Ive been trying all day. The yellow checkerboard panda did eat one bloodworm and the small turquoise tiger ate a bloodworm and spit it out and he ate a small piece of flake food.


    3. I used Seachem stress guard yesterday when I placed them in the tank and again today. I followed the directions and put 60ml in my 120 gallon tank. Also using seachem stability and pristine as per instructions on the bottle.



    Tank/Water

    4. 120 gallon is about 2 months old.. I cycled it with mystery snails then a few weeks ago I put some cardinal tetra and rummy nose tetra in, most of them didn't make it because they came with ammonia burns and came down with fungus... treatment only saved 5 of those fish. now with my new shipment I have a total of about 28 cardinal tetra, 8 rummy nose and 5 discus.


    5. Water change regime (I did 50% the day before adding them and I did 25% today ).


    6. The tank has been running about 2 months, I have natural sand on the bottom and on the right side where the water intake is I made it bare bottom because that's where I feed them. I vacuum any uneaten food after 10 minutes.


    7. I haven't aged the water because the ph swing is .1


    8. Parameters and water source; ph 7.3 ; gh 71.6ppm ; kh 80-90ppm ; ammonia, nitrite and nitrate are 0. I'm on city water which is drawn from a deep well

    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 _____was 84.6 but I raised the temp to 87 today to try to get them to eat.

    - ph _7.3____

    - ammonia reading _0___

    - nitrite reading _0___

    - nitrate reading _0___

    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.



    - municipal water _100___





    10. I have tried to feed them Seachem nutridiet Discus Flakes, New life spectrum optimum flakes, frozen bloodworms. I even tried soaking these in seachem garlic guard. All the tetras are eating fine.



    11. 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.
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  2. #2
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    george melendez

    Default Re: New Discus help

    Talk about starting on an uphill battle, i think i would ask for my money back. I would want to start with healthy fish. Good luck Nautica!!

  3. #3
    Registered Member Sabrina's Avatar
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    Default Re: New Discus help

    Hi Nautica,
    Sounds like the fish had a bad delivery, id be speaking with the business you brought them from about that.
    First thing and probably the most important is that your tank is not cycled because there is no Nitrate readings, its good to have no Ammonia and Nitrite but not having Nitrate means your fish will have to go through the cycle. I'm not sure what Seachem Pristine is? Please keep using the Stability for the next 7 days as per instructions on the bottle, your going to have ammonia and nitrite spikes so keep a close eye on your water readings daily. And I assume you have Prime as well to detox the water from the tap? Try not to worry so much about your discus eating just yet, I recently brought home 5 new discus and it took 4-5 days before they would eat anything. The most important thing right now is getting your water right. You have done all you can to get them in the tank right and keep trying to feed them until they start to eat some, keep your lights on the tank off while your fish get use to their new home, its ok to leave the light off for a few days while they settle. As for the discus with the dark face and eye problem, perhaps it got hurt in transport, it might come good in time. Please keep asking questions and keep us up to date with what's going on if you can

  4. #4
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    Default Re: New Discus help

    Thank you for your help. Yesterday I noticed all but the red one were picking at the driftwood and plants eating the biofilm so I added bacter ae and they happily ate it. After that they perked up and have been eating everything I put in the tank and are swimming around happily. The red one stayed in the corner behind the filter and I've been really concerned until thankfully this evening she started eating the bacter ae then picking at the plants/driftwood... Within 20 minutes she was swimming with the rest of them I think she's going to be ok!

    Seachem pristine is another good bacteria that removes ammonia, nitrites and nitrates. My tank fully cycled weeks ago but as a precaution since I added so many fish at once I've been using the pristine and stability and will keep using them. I also have a lot of plants that help with nitrates. I'm new to discus but have had all kinds of other fish, mystery snails and red cherry shrimp so thankfully I'm familiar with keeping the tank cycled.


    I did a lot of research on how to keep discus healthy but I didn't expect them to come in such bad shape.

    I've been doing several water tests with test strips through the day and 1x a day using the api master test kit just to be sure. Now that they're eating a lot my nitrates went up to 5 so I did another water change of 30%. I'm planning on every other day until they're done growing but I'll adjust the amount and frequency depending on the water test and their behavior.

    I've been looking into it more and I'm not sure if her eye was damaged during shipment or if she was born with a chipped eye.. If anyone knows how to tell I would appreciate it. Also is out possible her face is colored that way from peppering? I did contact the seller and showed him the picture and asked for advise on how to help her but he said there's nothing wrong that she just needed time to recover from the shipment.

    I'm just glad they're all doing better! Now I can feel safe naming them all I've had a really rough start. My first shipment of tetras came sick, most died and they came with 3 mystery fish...one of them survived and ended up being a female guppy. The seller tried to make things right by sending me replacement tetras for the ones that died and agreed to make sure I don't receive any more guppies. Since I had to pay shipping again I decided to just get the discus all together and be done with it. Well after picking them out through picture messages and naming them all, ups didn't deliver them on Friday. Saturday after several phone calls to customer service begging them to let me come get them, they said they're already on the truck for delivery but they still didn't show up.. Then they closed and stopped answering their phone! I was a wreck all weekend. Then they delivered my poor dead fish on Monday afternoon. They blamed the seller for shipping ground but I still filed complaints against them for holding a package that was clearly labeled live fish and not allowing me to pick them up.

    The seller apologized and wanted to send me replacements. I didn't want to risk putting any more fish through that again but new said he could have ups hold them at the facility and I could pick them up. By that time the ups facility manager called me to apologize once she for all my messages, she promised to hold the package for me this time so I agreed to the replacement. This time the seller didn't let me pick them or see pictures before he sent them. I went as soon as ups opened to pick them up this time so I was really surprised they were already in such bad shape. They were in a cooler with 1 heat pack but that night it was in the high 30's so they still got cold In the sellers video about his shipping process it shows the fish happy and ready to eat within 5 hrs of being placed in their new tank so when I got mine and put them in the tank I was pretty distraught and panicked.

    The first 36 hrs i lost a few cardinal and rummy nose tetras but now the ick is gone and the discus are doing good. i now have 6 rummy nose, 25 cardinal tetra, 5 discus and one female guppy!

    This is my first experience shipping fish, is this normal? I don't mean about the ups part but about their condition upon arrival?


    Hopefully it's smooth sailing from here as long as I keep my water clean!
    Last edited by Nautica; 03-17-2018 at 12:32 AM.

  5. #5
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    Default Re: New Discus help

    Thank you. I've become attached to them now so there's no going back. This is my first experience shipping fish. Is it normal for them to come sick and have some losses of tetra from the stress of shipping? I'll attach a picture of the rummy nose tetra in their shipping bag...I didn't take pictures of the rest because I was trying to hurry and didn't want to stress them out any more than they were. The water was really dirty and smelled terrible but is that something that could really be avoided?
    Attached Images Attached Images

  6. #6
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    Default Re: New Discus help

    Well this morning some of the cardinals have fungus

  7. #7
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    Default Re: New Discus help

    Hi Nautica,
    Ive never had fish shipped so I don't know much about that sorry. The fish should not be sick though, you need to report that to the place you got them from. Sounds like you got a bad batch of fish other than the discus.
    I'm sorry your having so much trouble with this, hopefully things get better soon! Keep us up to date if you can

  8. #8
    Administrator and MVP Dec.2015 Second Hand Pat's Avatar
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    Default Re: New Discus help

    Hi Nautica, if you are in the US I would suggest you try our SimplyDiscus Sponsors. Your experience will be totally different. Also best to QT your discus separate from other fish.
    Pat
    Your discus are talking to you....are you listening


  9. #9
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    Default Re: New Discus help

    I placed the cardinal tetra that had fungus in a hospital tank with tetra lifeguard and they're improving but then yesterday afternoon several of the fish including the discus all started having a few spots of ick but were still acting fine. I turned the heat up from 86.5 to 88 but as of right now the ick has continued to worsen with almost all the fish having at least a few spots though they're still acting normal. I feel like the high heat isn't enough and I want to get ahead of it before the fish start acting sick so I'm trying to decide between seachem metroplex or paraguard. We've been vacuuming the bottom and daily water changes which we've upped to 50%.

  10. #10
    Registered Member Sabrina's Avatar
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    Default Re: New Discus help

    Oh Nautica, you poor thing, I really feel for you having all this trouble.
    I am not experienced with Ick so I cant give instructions, I hope someone else can help you here.
    I hope your fish get better soon!

  11. #11
    Registered Member bluelagoon's Avatar
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    Default Re: New Discus help

    The heat will kill ich.It will sometimes look worse before it gets better,but will;usually about the four day mark.I treat ich with heat alone and it has always worked for me.Ich meds are harsh on tetras and scaleless fish and heat might be safer way to go.

  12. #12
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    Default Re: New Discus help

    Thank you for your support, I hope they get better soon too! I'm going to keep the heat turned up and I found a more natural treatment called herbtana that had good reviews and its supposed to be really safe so I'm going to try it.

  13. #13
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    Default Re: New Discus help

    My poor red discus started going down hill yesterday. I bought the herbtana and started using it 2 days ago and the fish all seemed fine. The ick is starting to clear up. We also removed the black background because the seller said that her face is turning black from trying to blend in with the dark, not from bruising during shipment like I thought. He also admitted that she might have had her eye like that before she was shipped but he didn't know because he only looked at one side of her when he placed her in the shipping bag! So I'm pretty sure she was born with a chipped eye. I was able to get my money back for this one but I still care about her and don't want her to die. Could this be the cause of her poor health though?

    So yesterday afternoon I noticed she was staying in the corner floating sideways at the top and she looked pale. I thought she might be constipated with dead worms since I started the herbtana the day before or possibly swim bladder. She was also turning face up towards the surface so I added an air bubbler to that corner. I turned off the lights and after doing some research I decided to try some epsom salt. I used 12 tsp. In my 120 gallon tank last night around6pm. This morning she is now at least straight and not turning face up or sideways but she looks exhausted and pale and she has white hanging out ( maybe from not eating it doesn't look like worms but I'm not an expert).

    The other fish have been little piggies and I clearly see them sucking in and eating whole flakes while she mostly has just been picking at the food and mostly eating off the driftwood and plants and I haven't actually seen her swallow a whole flake yet. I can already see that all the rest of the fish have grown a little and she hasn't.

    We've still been doing 50% water changes. I stopped using pristine 2days ago and our test last night showed 0 ammonia, 0 nitrites, 5 nitrates. I started adding the pristine again in case that's what caused the change in her behavior. I've still been adding the the stability. I stopped adding the stress guard when I started using the herbtana.

    My thoughts are that maybe the larger water changes are causing this because I'm not aging the water. Or maybe this one fish has a bacterial problem because the rest seem fine. Or maybe she hasn't been eating since I got her and it's been a week now so it's catching up to her. Or maybe she's having an adverse reaction to the herbtana even though the other fish are fine.

    I've read on here to not panick and do too much at once so should I leave her in the tank and start with aged water changes? Or should I move her to the hospital tank? My concern with moving her is that #1 It's another change that will stress her out. #2 she'll miss her buddy.. The yellow panda keeps coming back up to her to keep her company.

    I tested the fresh water last night and it said ph 8.8 but when I add the prime it immediately goes down to 7.3-7.4. So it it's probably from the chlorine? I filled up my 10gallon hospital tank and let it sit overnight, when I checked it this morning it was the same ph 7.3-7.4..

    I'm going to get an aging barrel today just to make sure this isn't the cause.

    I've been using the water python and I make sure to match the temperature. I add the prime (13ml enough for over120gallons) to the corner right before I start filling. Then I also use a charcoal sponge in the tube as the water comes out to help reduce micro bubbles. I haven't noticed any stress whole doing the water changes..in fact they all try to swim up to my hand and the tube trying to investigate.

    I'll post a picture of them swimming yesterday morning all acting fine, then yesterday afternoon when she was floating in the corner sideways and now this morning.0321180911.jpg0320181706.jpg
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  14. #14
    Registered Member Sabrina's Avatar
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    Default Re: New Discus help

    Hello,
    I'm not sure where to start, I think i'll leave this to the more experienced members. Hope they can help on this one, good luck..

  15. #15
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    Default Re: New Discus help

    0321181142a-1.jpg

    now that it's all the way out, maybe it is a worm?? My poor fish. I wish I could start over and find one of the sponsors to purchase from but I'm going to keep trying and maybe my story will help someone else know what not to do!

    When I was looking to buy discus I could not find on this website how to find the sponsors, maybe they can change it to show a sponsor tab where it lists the sponsors or have a tab to click for purchasing fish from the sponsors!

    I did read reviews about the place I purchased from and there were a few references to it on here that seemed good so I thought it was a good place to get them. I also wanted to have cardinal and rummy nose tetra and from what I understood as long as I purchased them all from the same seller in one shipment that I could place them all in the tank together without doing a separate quarantine. The seller said that the tetra were all wild caught but that he de-wormed and disinfected them. Since they were all sharing water at the facility already I didn't think they needed to be separately quarantined. I learned my lesson!
    Last edited by Nautica; 03-21-2018 at 12:52 PM.

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