Update on darting!

[Chimama]

Hi All!

I just wanted to update all of you that gave me advice! I kept the lights off, kept the heat at 90 degrees and added salt. Yesterday I turned the temp down to 88. So far the one that was darting seems to be doing better and I have not seen any darting.

I also waited 4 days to do a water change as I got thinking about that possibly being a cause. Tonight I did a 25% change and all was good after the change. Could doing them everyday or every other day possibly be too much? I know a lot of you do WC’s everyday and big ones too. But I also know some only do them once or twice a week. So I was thinking maybe every day is too much mine. Honestly I don’t know if it is possible to do too many WC’s?!

Each day I didn’t do a WC I made sure to test my water parameters. All stayed good and steady!

So for now I’m going to stay with a few less WC’s and see how that goes! All three are eating good and active! I will say the one that was darting is not quite as active as he used to be before his darting episodes. And he seems to a bit of a loner and keeps to himself. But I also noticed that my other two are pretty much constantly together. The one that was darting and one of my other ones do a lot of tail slapping and bickering. So I’m thinking possibly they are both males and my third is a female. The one I believe is female has never bickered with the other two....... she just calmly swims away when one of the others tries to bicker with her!

And again thank you all for all the advice!

[dspeers]

That is fantastic news, hope that is an end to the problem.

If the cause all or in part is micro-bubbles then the bigger issue is the volume of each given water change rather than the frequency. Since you want to minimize the supersaturation of gasses, smaller volumes work better.

Also, Remember that the effect on the peak level of any contaminants over a given period of time is essentially equal based on the total % of water changed regardless of how frequently, i.e. 50% once every 5 days is equivalent to 10% per day or 5% every 12 hours. The trough level varies with the frequency, more frequent lower volume = higher trough. (In a 24/7 trickle system the peak and trough values are identical.) Since the danger is at peak level, going with more frequent lower volume water changes doesn't have a down side.............other than your time. The best answer is an aging system to allow gasses to come out of solution before ever going into the DT but such is not always possible.

Also adding salt increases how fast the supersaturation is dissipated. For fun, pour a fresh can of soda in a glass, add a teaspoon of salt. Hint do it in the sink, it makes a foamy mess but kids think it is hilarious.

[Chimama]

That is fantastic news, hope that is an end to the problem.

If the cause all or in part is micro-bubbles then the bigger issue is the volume of each given water change rather than the frequency. Since you want to minimize the supersaturation of gasses, smaller volumes work better.

Also, Remember that the effect on the peak level of any contaminants over a given period of time is essentially equal based on the total % of water changed regardless of how frequently, i.e. 50% once every 5 days is equivalent to 10% per day or 5% every 12 hours. The trough level varies with the frequency, more frequent lower volume = higher trough. (In a 24/7 trickle system the peak and trough values are identical.) Since the danger is at peak level, going with more frequent lower volume water changes doesn't have a down side.............other than your time. The best answer is an aging system to allow gasses to come out of solution before ever going into the DT but such is not always possible.

Also adding salt increases how fast the supersaturation is dissipated. For fun, pour a fresh can of soda in a glass, add a teaspoon of salt. Hint do it in the sink, it makes a foamy mess but kids think it is hilarious.

Great info! Thank you! I honestly don’t know if the water changes were the problem. And I never even thought of going lower and more frequent. I was previously doing 25-50% every day to every other day. And I actually went with a 50% every change figuring more was better. After waiting 4 days between changes this time I only did 25%. And I have not seen any darting which is great! So I will keep water change % lower and hopefully I will not have any more issues with darting!

Now my question on micro bubbles........ wouldn’t I see these as the tank was filling? Just curious because I’ve never actually seen any in the tank.

[dspeers]

Microbubbles is essentially a misnomer. It does not per se refer to the size, but rather just like CO2 coming out of solution in a soda or beer or champagne, first there is no bubble then a bubble appears. In lower supersaturation states the excess gas is released at the gas water interface aka surface of the tank with no apparent bubbles. If said bubble appears inside of the fish circulatory system then problems ensue just like the "the bends" in divers, and in a tightly enclosed space without a gas water interface such as a small blood vessel there is a risk of an actual bubble forming. Some folks report seeing such bubbles in tail fins, better eyes than mine... Anything that affects how much gas is in solution potentially can cause "microbubbles". Aeration of water under pressure, as can happen in water pipes will supersaturate, raising the temp will supersaturate as solubility of gas is inversely proportional to temp. That's why either aging the water with heat and some agitation or introducing less volume and or slower reduces or eliminates the risk. Unfortunately in the absence of measuring how much gas is in solution no way to be sure this is the issue, but you are not the first whose fish seem to respond to actions that mitigate this particular risk. Aerating an aging tank only makes sense if the water is at the same temp as the DT.

If you are really curious you could get one of those CO2 monitors with a colorimetric ph solution isolated with a fixed dKh, if it changes color indicating a rise in CO2 every time you change water you have an answer, but if it doesn't I'm not sure what that means. C02 is more complex than O2 or N2 as it rapidly establishes an equilibrium between dissolved C02 and carbonic acid. In addition the I do not know the rate at which CO2 vs O2 vs N2 comes out of solution in a supersaturated state.

Commercial fisheries refer to this as gas bubble disease, googling fish gas bubble disease provides an overwhelming number of reading opportunities

[Chimama]

Microbubbles is essentially a misnomer. It does not per se refer to the size, but rather just like CO2 coming out of solution in a soda or beer or champagne, first there is no bubble then a bubble appears. In lower supersaturation states the excess gas is released at the gas water interface aka surface of the tank with no apparent bubbles. If said bubble appears inside of the fish circulatory system then problems ensue just like the "the bends" in divers, and in a tightly enclosed space without a gas water interface such as a small blood vessel there is a risk of an actual bubble forming. Some folks report seeing such bubbles in tail fins, better eyes than mine... Anything that affects how much gas is in solution potentially can cause "microbubbles". Aeration of water under pressure, as can happen in water pipes will supersaturate, raising the temp will supersaturate as solubility of gas is inversely proportional to temp. That's why either aging the water with heat and some agitation or introducing less volume and or slower reduces or eliminates the risk. Unfortunately in the absence of measuring how much gas is in solution no way to be sure this is the issue, but you are not the first whose fish seem to respond to actions that mitigate this particular risk. Aerating an aging tank only makes sense if the water is at the same temp as the DT.

If you are really curious you could get one of those CO2 monitors with a colorimetric ph solution isolated with a fixed dKh, if it changes color indicating a rise in CO2 every time you change water you have an answer, but if it doesn't I'm not sure what that means. C02 is more complex than O2 or N2 as it rapidly establishes an equilibrium between dissolved C02 and carbonic acid. In addition the I do not know the rate at which CO2 vs O2 vs N2 comes out of solution in a supersaturated state.

Commercial fisheries refer to this as gas bubble disease, googling fish gas bubble disease provides an overwhelming number of reading opportunities

What awesome info! You know your stuff! I will be reading up on this! Very interesting! I would love to be able to age my water but unfortunately I have no room to do so at this time. So for the time being I will do less %........ I’d much rather do small changes everyday than do one big one and risk it being the water the cause for the darting. And in reality I will probably never really know if it was the water. But I certainly don’t want to take that chance with trying it out with a big WC and losing another!

[dspeers]

Glad to be able to help, also doing a little research to self check anything I am sharing with the group expands my knowledge base. Plus I am happy to contribute when I can. A successful forum depends on a willingness to share what you know so you can also learn what you don't and in some areas I have much to learn...

[Chimama]

Im definitely here to learn all I can as all I want is to give my discus the best that I can! I’ve learned so much in the past few months already! I want to eventually have more than 3. But seeing how I just lost three, I’m going to work on the 3 left and see how that goes before jumping into getting more. I don’t want to rush into getting more until I’m more confident I can keep things going smoothly! My husband says I’m obsessed with my tank! But who isn’t that own discus!!!!! They are so beautiful and amazing fish ��