Help with sick discus - 16 deaths in 3 weeks.

[Sparth]

I have 3 tanks, 20H, 2 are breeding pair and 1 had 14 babies that are about 1-1.5"ish. 3 Weeks ago, going on 4, my babies started dying. I moved the babies to the 20H, they ate like pigs. I made a new batch of discus food using beef (followed Hans recipe), everyone ate them fine even though they were fed with Turkey mixed before. A couple days later, the babies started freaking out, turning dark and hid in the corner. They still ate, but showed less interest. Food would be gone from the morning feeding by the time I went home from work. Next day, 3 dead in the morning and 1-2 dropped everyday. The adult discus are fine still, one pair even laid eggs during the first few days of baby deaths. Tested the water, everything seem normal. Does look like it's about .25 ammonia in the discus tank but I do at least 1 WC per day from aged water 55 drum barrel (Water are still conditioned with Prime and about 1-2 days old). I did a PP treatment, stopped the death for a day and then they started dropping. During the whole duration, babies were not eating. About a week after, something wiped out the whole tank. The babies showed no infections or anything. I'm thinking food poisoning so I threw away the batch of food, made new one out of the old fashion way, beef heart. The adult started to show signs. Getting spooked often, sometimes dashing, lost of appetite, fighting a lot and stopped breeding. 4 days ago, after a water change, one of my unproven pair was laying flat for awhile, it was late at night, I couldn't do anything. He was dead in the morning. The female is fine. A day after that, the male on my other tank was turning really dark so I thought they were getting ready to lay eggs but it was a bit strange. He hovered around the filter very close and looked like he was sick. I kept an eye on him. Next day, he was still doing that, not eating, dark and by nightfall, he was laying flat but still swam around. The female would come over and nudge him and he would get up and swam. Next day, I bought Furan-2 to treat all the tanks since there were some sort of contamination. I use the same python. Next day, the male was dead and showed a dark patch on his body. Now the female has some sort of scuff patch on her body as well, but she's doing fine. I have feed the 2 female for a couple days, since the treatment. I have 2 more doses left. I want to continue to treat until the female with the scuff on the side of her body heal...and then I'm back to square one if something comes up. I'm new to discus and treating them.



The Adult discus tank, I change the water 50% per day, sometimes 100%. The babies, I do 100% WC a day, sometimes twice.


Bare bottom breeding tank, white sides, the usual. I kept the babies in 10 gal prior to moving to the 20gal. The adults i have for over a year and moved to their breeding tanks for a couple months.


I aged my water, at least 24 hours, with double dose of Prime. PH does not swing, municiple water. However, the city did do a water maint. end of April. We have Chloramine.


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.


- temp 88-89 for baby tank, 86 for adults

- ph 8.2-8.3

- ammonia reading 0 - .25

- nitrite reading 0

- nitrate reading 0

- municipal water

Any new fish, plants or inverts added recently?
Just the babies were new, from the same breeder as the 2 new female adults. I have the babies for 3 months, the female were 1-2 months


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.
Babies, 5 times a day. Morning, Flakes food, before work, home made BH mix, 12PM - flake, 4PM, flake, 8PM BH mix.



Pictures to be added soon.

[Sparth]

Attachment 123860Attachment 123861Attachment 123862 - Male SS - deceased

Female SS with scuff, in treatment

Attachment 123863

[jeep]

You seem to be conditioning your water perfectly! The first thing I'm seeing is the presence of ammonia but no nitrates. Has something possibly compromised your bio filtration? Ammonia should be 0 and nitrates <5...

I'm wondering if something happened during the city water line maintenance, but you should be past that by now...

If the food was contaminated, I would think it should have passed by now since you threw away the mix.

When I have any issues, I always add 3-5 TBS salt per 10g and it never hurts, and almost always helps.

Whenever a tank crashes like this, it's usually water related. Hopefully some others will chime in soon...

[Sparth]

You seem to be conditioning your water perfectly! The first thing I'm seeing is the presence of ammonia but no nitrates. Has something possibly compromised your bio filtration? Ammonia should be 0 and nitrates <5...

I'm wondering if something happened during the city water line maintenance, but you should be past that by now...

If the food was contaminated, I would think it should have passed by now since you threw away the mix.

When I have any issues, I always add 3-5 TBS salt per 10g and it never hurts, and almost always helps.

Whenever a tank crashes like this, it's usually water related. Hopefully some others will chime in soon...

It might be the light angle of the bottle, but the ammonia is almost at 0, between the yellow and the 2nd yellow, but I don't think that's the issue. I've talked to several people near me and they don't have problems. I always add salt when I do WC, just a tps though. about 3 tps for the baby discus tank since they were dropping like flies. I don't know if the tank crash because I used the same water for all 3 tanks. the 4 adults were fine.

Oh, for some reason, might be treatment with general cure for the baby tank, but the TDS was 800. My water here is around 300. I did use Kent Discuss Essential but I have been using it for a year with the rock hard Florida water. I have stopped using it though. The TDS are still in the 320-340.

[jeep]

I deleted the last few posts. Sparth is not giving advise, he is asking for advise...

[danotaylor]

Dee it seemed to me that this member was seeking advice, not giving it. In light of that your comments come across as super harsh and unnecessary. Not that great a self representation for someone who has just joined the community.

[Sparth]

I am still seeking for advice btw...tomorrow will be the last day of Furan treatment. I will monitor them. I just don’t want them to die while waiting for answers.

[Dee1958]

First off Sparth stop with the 100 percent daily water changes on all of your tanks that is the most stressful thing you can do to a fish tank, throw away the furan,throw away the fresh beef heart and turkey,put your fry back in the ten gallon tank and by the way how big are the fry,do no more than a 30 percent water change a week ,try lowering your ph a touch to about 7 or slightly below, get you some new life spectrum growth and nls discus and if you send me your address I will send you some of the food I am feeding

[brewmaster15]

First off Sparth stop with the 100 percent daily water changes on all of your tanks that is the most stressful thing you can do to a fish tank, throw away the furan,throw away the fresh beef heart and turkey,put your fry back in the ten gallon tank and by the way how big are the fry,do no more than a 30 percent water change a week ,try lowering your ph a touch to about 7 or slightly below, get you some new life spectrum growth and nls discus and if you send me your address I will send you some of the food I am feeding

Dee,
Sorry but This is wrong. Its not good advice at all to give. The op is using aged water. You can do multiple 100% water changes on discus fry with aged water everyday .It is not a problem at all as a matter of fact its what many truly successful breeders and hobbyists do with their fry. .. so please dont advise people to do 30% water changes a week on fry.

And as for the food choices ...thats not the problem here either. You can feed nls if you want but the foods the op is feeding are fine choices for his fish and not a problem here.

Additionally your advice to lower the pH is wrong too. Dont mess with your pH . Its not necessary.and can cause pH bounce and stress.

You posted earlier you are new to discus? Please be sure that you take the time to learn about their care before advising others.


op..John ,Odds are you are having mini cycles going on.. When.we feed fry multiple feedings like that your bioload spikes from the ammonia excreted from the fish and the food in the water. These are very toxic to fry.The ammonia becomes more toxic as the pH goes up and yours is pretty high. Additional the ammonia increases you will get spikes of nitrites and may already have. These may go back down to zero but each time they spike the frytake up.the nitrites causing brown blood disease. Nitrites take 1-2 days for the fish to remove from their system so you get a cumulative affect. Brians advice on the salt is spot on as that will prevent nitrite uptake. Methylene blue will treat the nitrites in the fish.

My advice is increase your water changes..be sure not to over feed.Dont leave food in the water. Add more biological filtration. You didnt mention your filtration but adding some sponge filters can help give surface area for biological filtration.

Hth,
Al

[Sparth]

Thank you Brewmaster. My frys are long gone. I am trying to save my 2 female as their mates dropped within 3 days of each other. They showed no visible internal bacteria. The light batch on my SS female is smaller now. I am planning to do a full WC after today’s treatment, then feed them to see if they eat again.

As far as your filtration question, i am using sponge filters and airlines. I am thinking of switching to a sump though but I feel like I don’t know what to do when I have frys, since I don’t want the water to cycle the frys. Any suggestions?

[brewmaster15]

Definitely finish up your furan treatments and try to feed them sparingly at first...pick what ever food they liked best. Keep in mind that furan 2 knocks back your biofilter so carefully watch ammonia and nitrites and do lots of wc.

All.the behaviors you described are very common in nitrite and ammonia poisoning.

You mentioned the city did water maintenance at the end of April? Do you know what they did? We have had alot of members lose fish after maintenance events like line repairs. .. Reason being is they have to flush the lines after working on them . The effects can look like ammonia/nitrite poisoning too.

Its possible that they were monitoring the water quality and had to bump up the treatments. It might be a good idea to look into it.


As for the fry...I think your sponge filters are ok sump isnt needed and not something we use for fry tanks usually. You can use both sump and sponges but just build in a shutoff to bypass the fry tank when you have young fry.

Al

[Second Hand Pat]

Hi John, I am not sure putting sumps on a 20H is worth the trouble. With fry you definitely want to use sponge filters. Sorry to hear about your issues and hope the two females make it. I do find salt helpful when treating with furan 2.
Pat

[Sparth]

Brewmaster, I don’t know what exactly they did but I’ll find out. Several people live near me with frys are doing fine so I’m not sure if it’s really water related. Also if it were water related, would it crash all my tanks within days, not weeks?

They love the Hiraki Bloodworm but I only feed them once or twice a week. I’m afraid they get used to it and wont eat their normal food.

What do you think about the scuff and the dark patches? Some of my baby discus and red patches, like bruise marks but not dark patches, just off colors. I wish I can post videos here on my phone.

[brewmaster15]

John,
Because discus generate alot of slime coat to feed their fry they can sometimes come down with external bacterial infections. That patch sounds like one. This can be caused by water quality issues or even happen when the fry have been feeding on the parents but slow down or stop. All that excess slime coat is a buffet for bacteria. The fry are also susceptible to it . I your high pH water its more likely... so tank hygene is critical. Wipe down the tank walls regularly/daily.... gently rinse the sponges every few days...alternate the cleaning.

You can never have too many sponges.. I keep several per tank for my fry.. 4-5 per 55 gal.That may be excessive but it works really well.

Al

[brewmaster15]

On the blood worms... feed them it if its all they will eat. Get them healthy and then you can wean them onto other foods. There are quality options out there for food these days.

al