One dead wondering what to do...

[jwcarlson]

This is a copy paste from my Facebook post and it's a little ramble-y. Pretty bummed when this all went tumbling down around me Thursday morning.

PH 8.2 (tap comes out at 7 and ages to 8.2), Ammonia 0.25, Nitrite 0.25, Nitrate 5. All in ppm. Tank partially cycled, when fish went in, as of 4 or 5 days ago I'd had 0 ammonia and nitrite (more below).
I have had these 10 for about 3.5 weeks. Of the 10, 9 of them have been doing great so far as I can tell. Growing a bunch, probably +1/2 inch or so on them. One has been hanging back (another thread on him if you look at my posts).
Because he continued to be pushed off food, I decided to move him Wednesday night after my nightly water change. Set him up a 10 gallon, moved him over - no issue. Water changes have been 40% daily and have been creeping up to 70% using 24 hour aged/preheated water.
Wednesday nights water change was normal, but just decided to spot check and was surprised to see about 0.5 ppm ammonia. I had been getting zeros and figured the tank was cycled. Didn't think much of it because with the big changes and prime I had more than one discus person tell me all would be fine with Prime and Stability dosed at water changes. And it was, fish were very interactive, hungry, etc. Seeing that ammonia though, I decided to use a bottle of Fritz Zyme 7 that I had sitting around. I had used a bottle of it the day I put the fish in without issue. Figured maybe I could give the colony a boost. I also lightly rinsed two of the 4 sponge filters in tank water. Talking two squeezes. I also wipe down sides, wires/tubing, heaters, and bottom before water changes.
When I woke up the next morning my sick fish in quarantine was the best discus I had, he had also gotten a little bit of the Fritz Zyme and same eater source for his tank. One was pitching almost parallel to the bottom. They weren't schooling, looked like absolute trash. Some tail melting looking on the tips and very back of dorsal. Noticed the pectoral fins today with ragged look, a couple with some whitish spots on tail.
So that morning I cleaned tank bottom quick and checked water again. Super minor ammonia and nitrites. No feed as they were obviously not going to eat.
After work they were still pathetic looking, but at least schooling. Did another 70% water change last night. This morning... Similar, no marked improvement or worsening. No food again, clearly not eating. Thought maybe they would be turning the corner, but this one was dead when I got home.
I just pulled all 8 remaining into the 10 gallon and I would say they already seem at least more alert.
Only other tidbit would be Wednesday night WC one of my barrel heaters had failed and tank went from 90 down to 85 at water change. Last night I had remedied that.
So fish are out of the main tank (75 gallon) probably draining and cleaning it out. No clue what to do with filters and whatnot.

After this post about an hour after I'd put them in to the 10 gallon the little "sick" one started pecking at stuff trying to eat. And a few of the newly moved ones started doing the same. I put a little piece of beef heart in and all but one kind of swarmed it for a bit, but they didn't eat much. Still reeling about how it could go from "great" to melting fins in (literally) six hours while a fish in the same water with the same added Fritz Zyme stuff in another tank seems to be carrying on normally and when the others are added they seem to perk up almost immediately. I've been racking my brain and cannot come up with a scenario unless taking out the low fish in the pecking order set everyone off going crazy (in the dark) after I went to bed. All looked normal when I laid down, they seem to kind of space out and basically don't seem to move when the lights start dimming and turn off. A kid putting something in the tank? No evidence of that. I did forget to put the cat downstairs that night, but he's pretty old and has not attempted to do anything do the fish other than watching them. Could he have terrorized them that night, sure.

Thanks for your time. Only emergency tank option right now is the 10 gallon. I'll clean the 75 thoroughly tomorrow (it is empty right now), not sure how to sanitize all of the sponge filters. Not sure how long I can do 10 discus in a 10 gallon, I of course won't feed much at all and only if they look remotely interested.

The second pic he'd been on the paper towel a bit so that side looks kind of dry/weird because of that. Wanted to get the side with the light colored blotches first. There are 2.5" Stendkers from Hans that I've had for 3.5 weeks (Feb 15). This one measured 3.25" on the dot (not claiming it was 2.5" when it came in, but that was the fish ordered, I'm sure it was closer to 3").

[Iminit]

How’s everything today? Pics of the discus may help.

[jwcarlson]

Eating lightly in the 10 gallon and acting more normal-ish. Still a little off for sure, but that's to be expected, I think. Also in a room with constant traffic compared to where they were.

[jwcarlson]

I think my main question now is how to I kill off anything that might have be in the main tank. I drained it last night and am planning on resetting the whole ball of wax. Total scrub down with... peroxide? Lots of rinsing, and will probably pop all the sponge filters into something to kill off everything in them before rinsing them as best I can.

[jwcarlson]

discus3.jpg

discus4.jpg

These might be completely useless. The damage isn't major by any stretch of the imagination and the white spot on the Flachen isn't real, it's either a reflection or something that floated up. On the blue diamond you can kind of see the slight C shaped piece missing from the back of the dorsal and also on the dark angel. I cannot capture the pectorals, but it's similar with maybe some slight splitting between the rays (or whatever that part is called on the pectorals). I could fish one out of the tank and maybe get a better picture, but don't want to stir them up worse than they have been the last few days.

A few, but not all, are coming to the front when one of us comes over. I gave them a tiny piece of beef heart this morning (like a 1/16" shaving off a cube), they ate it all. Then a very small chunk of FDBlkW cube stuck to the glass and all nine of them came out for at least a little nibble. They ate all that too. There's poop on the bottom from overnight, all the poop that's there looks normal. They had not eat since Wednesday around 7 PM.

[seanyuki]

Sponge filter either microwave or boil it.


http://forum.simplydiscus.com/showth...sponge-filter&

I think my main question now is how to I kill off anything that might have be in the main tank. I drained it last night and am planning on resetting the whole ball of wax. Total scrub down with... peroxide? Lots of rinsing, and will probably pop all the sponge filters into something to kill off everything in them before rinsing them as best I can.

[Iminit]

They look fine now. How often were you changing the water in the 75 and what types of filters are you using?

[jwcarlson]

Three course sponge filters, one of the finer sponge filters that has two roughly soda can sized sponges.
All air driven no power heads or anything.

Water changes every night 40% first 2.5 weeks, 60 to 70% last 1.5 weeks. Bare bottom. Before each change wipe down sides, wires/tubes/heaters, wipe bottom about every other day. I have rinsed two sponges in tank water twice since set up. Just light squeezes, nothing too crazy.

[Iminit]

I’m not a fan of sponges. But with your water changes your water should have been fine. Are you using the liquid api kit? Since everrything was fine before that last test I’m going to say it’s that fritz stuff. If I remember that stuff needs to be refrigerated and may also have an expiration date. I don’t think your fish are ill I think the water was bad. Ammonia and nitrite were rising which means do a water change. 50% or more. I’m guess you refill the tank let it run for a day or so and add a few discus a day till there all back in and change water daily. Thing with juveniles is they need clean new water and lots of food. Hope this helps. Last thing you should do is add any of these liquid additives. Just Prime with new water. As you see on Facebook you will get 10 different things that you need to add. Than no follow through.

Hans fish are strong. I’ve raised 14 2 different groups from 2.5”. A lot of things go on with young discus. Qt tank (as you have) is needed because some will fall behind and just stop eating. When moved to qt most come back to eating and get healthy. I also beleive the juveniles produce hormones that cause some discus to fall behind.

[jwcarlson]

I just boiled my sponges (and bricked the bases on the big ones... grr).
Wiped the tank (and everything else) down with peroxide rinsed a ton.
Will fill it up later tonight and get everything rolling.

Liz had suggested prime + stability until it was cycled. I'll keep doing that.
Re: sponge filters, I'm new to them other than having used them a bit here on some smaller tanks. Mechanically they're garbage at filtering (in my opinion), but when I'm committed to doing changes nightly I figure I'm kind of the mechanical filtration and the sponges are hopefully just harboring the BB and not collecting a bunch of black worm and beef heart bits to rot in a canister or something. I do have a canister filter that I could setup, but I don't think it's necessary. I'm also enjoying the nearly no flow of this tank and not having the discus battling 500 gph jetstream burning calories.

The Fritz was from source I trust (and I used a bottle the day I put the fish in that came in the same shipment as this one), it doesn't need to be refrigerated. It also wasn't expired. I know it's tough to come across in text as not "taking offense". I greatly appreciate all of the ideas and spitballing.
Just the one of the 10 wasn't keeping up. The rest have grown pretty well IMO, this one that died was 3.25" on the nose and the other 8 in that cohort are pretty close to that size. Were on course to have grown pretty dang well in the first month, but that's been kind of bricked at the moment.

Side note, the one I moved to QT because he wasn't eating hadn't eaten. I'm not kidding when I say the first fish I plopped in out of the bucket when I moved the rest over. Little dude ran over to a little pinch of FDBlkW that I'd stuck to the glass and started eating. I've been feeding them beef heart (100%, no additives on Willie's suggestion) and Al's FDBlkW (regular, the coloration kind, and some with spinach). Occasionally I'll drop in Vibrabites, Hikari Discus Gold, or Al's discus pellets (that he sent as a sample) if they're pecking around, but I know they're not hungry enough to eat a beef heart cube.

Regarding Facebook... yeah, it's usually a trainwreck (I also keep and breed honey bees and have entirely isolated myself from all of those groups as it is 95% terrible advice from people who've got about 15 minutes of experience keeping bees). I thought I'd toss it up there first thing as I figured it would be a quicker response. I took no action based on what anyone there'd said. Like most hobbies, there's a lot of different opinions and ideas. I think I'm pretty good as separating the wheat from the chaff.
Yes using API liquid test kit. I also have test strips from the Aquarium Co-Op that (in my limited testing and experimentation) hit all of the same numbers if I follow the directions for the strips, except for pH, GH, and KH. But for these reported above I did a confirmation API test and the numbers were the same.

I do appreciate all of the help and ideas. My only hang up with blaming the Fritz Zyme is that I also dumped it into the 10 gallon tank. The wrinkle is that the fish in the QT tank wasn't eating. The others would have eventually started pecking around if there was anything on the bottom from the Fritz... and there's always some little chunky stuff in it. But the water absolutely caused the problem, I don't think they're going to have fins start rotting overnight if they'd eaten some of that.

I'm also really upset at myself that I didn't move them over after 24 hours. Lesson learned there, I hope.
Thanks again.

[Iminit]

Yes I get it . But you’ve got to go with what was last done. Fritz. I’ve read from others they’ve had problems. Next is always patients. Most things will clear up with water changes. Next move is salt. As stated a smaller grow out will probably help too. A 29-40 makes a great grow out and at tank. The 10 for meds. For me discus are the only fish I’ve used meds on. I don’t use prime stability or any of the bacteria boosters. Havnt had the need.

[jwcarlson]

Anyone know a source for seeded sponges? I'd pay handsomely for one at the moment. Too nervous to try one from my community tank for fear of introducing something additional. The little sponge filter in the qt seems to be keeping nitrites at zero, but I am not really feeding.
Maybe that will be enough to kick the sterilized stuff off.

You are not the only person who has suggested a smaller tank. I've heard different theories/ideas as to why that might be preferred, including not burning calories swimming too much. Without much flow because of just using sponges, I am not sure how much they're really burning by swimming. They're active, but it isn't like they're a school of rummynose.

[jwcarlson]

Everyone is back in the big tank and the little guy's eating remains the same. If I were to move him back into the 10 gallon, how long should I wait for his appetite to improve? Is it possible he's dealing with something internal? He's pretty hide-y, but does occasionally join the rest and cruise around. He only seems to show interest in food once every day or once every other day. Just a couple pecks.

Thinking about moving him again, but his immediately jumping to start eating when the rest joined him in QT tank has me wondering what's right.

[Iminit]

I’d say leave the little guy in the 10 till he’s eating good and growing. Raise the temp in the 10 to 88. That should get him eating regular. I keep them out for at least a month.

[jwcarlson]

Do you have success with a single discus eating alone? He was absolutely uninterested until the other fish joined in. I'm half tempted to toss some of the tetras from the community tank in with him, maybe they'd teach him how to eat.

He did eat a little bit this afternoon. He seems like more of a grazer. When watching them he seems to peck at whatever is on the ground more than actively eating off the beefheart cube or worm cube. If I didn't screw my cycle up, I'm planning on setting up the auto feeder to give them a little bit of food during my work hours. I can feed them pretty well when I'm home, but they do clean up everything on the bottom if I sprinkle in some vibrabites before I leave. So he might eat more if I offered that more, but I don't want to be auto dumping food in when the tank isn't cycled properly.