dark discus

[phrost]

Problem

1. Please explain the problems with your fish. When did you notice the problems and did anything unusual happen that you think started them?
One of my fish is very dark, it would sometimes get dark when the lights are on but color up nicer when the lights were off. Now its pretty dark all of the time. It also got a scrape about two weeks ago but it appears to have healed. I recently noticed that sometimes it would dart around the tank or swim in circle and then bump into things and swim sideways for ~ 30 seconds. I first noticed this erratic swimming a few days ago.

2. Symptoms (i.e. turning dark, excess slime, not eating, clamped fins, flashing, darting, clamped gills, white/yellow/green poop, hiding, headstanding or tailstanding, white on tips of fins, rotting or fungus, blisters/white zits on fish, bloated, cloudy eyes, wounds).
sometimes it looks like its swimming around uncontrollably for a few seconds then calms down. It's also been trying to hide under a piece of drift wood it knocked over while it was swimming in circles. It's much darker than it used to be.

3. What medications/ treatments have you already tried and what were the results. Include dosage and duration of treatment.
I have not tried any medications.


Tank/Water

4. Tank size and ages, numbers and sizes of fish.

150g filter is fluval fx6 - running since August, Discus in tank since October. Other inhabitants are assassin snails, bladder snails, black skirt tetras x10, oto cat x4, sterbai cory x6
4 discus ~ 5 inches received at end of August, placed in quarantine for 6 weeks before moving to display in October

5. Water change regime (What percentage and how often).

50-60% once a week

6. How long has tank been running? Is it bare bottom? If you have substrate, what type and how deep is it?

5 months, sand substrate ~ 1 inch thick

7. Do you age your water? If you do for how long and what is the ph swing.

I don't age the water. pH from the tap is ~ 7.8. pH in tank before water change is ~ 7.6

8. What type/brand water conditioner do you use? Do you add it to the tank or aging barrel? How much do you use?

Seachem safe. I dose 1/4 tsp with each water change. I add it to the tank as I start to refill.

9. 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 82

- ph 76

- ammonia reading 0

- nitrite reading 0

- nitrate reading 30ppm? (its between 20 and 40)

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. Any new fish, plants or inverts added recently.

I added assassins snails about two weeks ago

11. 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.

I feed this daily:

Morning - sera discus granules
afternoon - hikari vibra bites (some tetra min flakes and hikari sinking pellets for other fish)
evening - frozen mysis shrimp or frozen brine shrimp w/ spirulina defrosted in a small cup of tank water

12. 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.
PXL_20230101_185346200.MP.jpg I don't have a video of the erratic swimming

[Iminit]

This seems to be happening more often lately. It’s being referred to as whirling. Symptoms seem to be the same. Fish is 4+ weeks in and starts darting and spinning through the tank. How are the other 3 discus. You may want to move this one to a qt tank.

[phrost]

The other three are fine. their colors are good. All 4 of them eat pretty readily

[jeep]

This condition arises from time to time. I haven't read a conclusive cause or cure. Sometimes it goes away and sometimes the discus may hit the tank wall or jump out.

There was someone who treated with an extremely high dose of metro and said it was successful. I'll try to find his notes...

Otto's can be trouble as well. They're active at night while discus rest. They're known to go for the slime coat on discus, causing panic. This can also happen during the day if they develop a taste. Have you noticed any small marks on your discus?

Snails can be a problem too.

If this continues, I would move it to a bare bottom hospital tank and see if there are any changes.

[phrost]

My tank has a lid so they wont be able to get out, thankfully. I haven't seen it hit a wall yet but hoping that doesnt happen.

The otos are afraid of the discus, they always swim away whenever a discus is near. I've not seen any marks that look like anything is sucking on the discus's slime coat. I did a water change yesterday and the dark discus looks much better today and more active but still acting weird. It was swimming up and down the glass and I've never seen it do that before.

If there are no improvements tomorrow I'll put it in a hospital tank alone.

[jeep]

I would suggest removing the otos. The discus are afraid of them for a reason. With luck, that is the source of your problem.

I would add 2TBS regular salt per 10g and see if this helps. Also, try raising the temp to 86-88 for a while and see if that helps.

And I just noticed, your nitrates are pretty high and this can cause skittishness and changes in color. Reports of darting also accompanies high nitrates. I would increase waster changes to try and bring them down to under 20. <5 is ideal.

[phrost]

Sorry I meant the otos are afraid of the discus not the discus are afraid of the otos. The discus own the tank they're not afraid of anything except someone walking by too fast.

I noticed nitrates were high also. I am going to continue water changes to bring them down. Some food must have gone uneaten and stuck somewhere so I'm gonna clean the bottom again too.

[jeep]

Sorry I meant the otos are afraid of the discus not the discus are afraid of the otos.

Ok, sorry I misread that... The otos have nothing to fear from discus, lol...

[bossanova]

I missed the size of this tank? I feel like 4 discus aren’t enough to dilute bullying, and this may have started to stress him. I like to treat the root cause, not the symptoms. Dr. Bossanova over here suspects your stocking is too low as is your WC schedule. Also, do you feed your Otos every day? Drop a couple of wafers in there every day and this should solve your issue.

I’ve never ever heard someone say “I fed all catfish/plecos in my tank every day for 7 days a high quality food that’s appropriate for them and on the eighth day they attached themselves to the side of my discus”

But YMMV

[phrost]

The tank is a 150 and 4 is definitely not enough to curb all bullying. I just couldn't fit more than 4 in my quarantine tank at a time and I'm going on vacation soon so I don't want my fish sitters to deal with quarantined fish. I do plan to get more discus at the end of the month of approximately the same size.

I drop an algae wafer in for the otos every other day but they also seem fine eating the hikari vibra bites when they get added in the afternoon. I don't think there's any issues with the otos. I've never seen them attached to a discus and there aren't any marks to suggest they're doing it when I'm not looking.

I raised the temp a little to 84 (it was previously 82 and I'm not trying to cook the other tank mates) and did a 60% water change a few times and the fish in question seems to be doing much better. It's brighter a lot more often and after a day of not eating it's back to meeting me at the glass when it's food time. I've also not seen it twirling at all in at least the last 4 days.