110 gallon tank water has gone crazy, advice......help

[troysdiiscus]

Hope everyone had a Merry Christmas!!!! So notice my discus acting alittle weird...so I checked my parimeters and here is what I found, now I have not done anything out of the norm....

35% WC everyday. 24 hours aged really no ph swing ph is the same 6.6
Feed twice a day, FDBW and BH at night before WC
No additions to tank or changes
10 discus range from 5.5 to 7 inches few cory cats
Use Safe for dechlor...
Tank running for 1 year and half..
Slightly planted, very low tech

Again no changes I have made. Clean my canisters on schedule, cleaned my XP last night, nothing bad in it that I saw. Nothing dead or food laying around. There are no dead areas in my tank. Everything pretty open. I also run a FX5 canister.

Now I had a XL sponge filter that my fusion air pump (piece of sh**) has gone out on me again has stopped working for about 2 days. Sponge stayed in tank, I cleaned and hooked up new air pump. Dont think that could have been it.....

My ammonia was .50 my Nitrate was .50 and my nitrates were fine at 5 ppm. :confused:
I did a 70% WC last night and wil do a 75% tonight. Not feeding today.
Anything I missed??? Why I am going through a cycle is beyond me!!! Dont know what could have happened....
I checked it this morning and the nitrite had lessened somewhat, guess maybe .30 or so...
I double dossed with Safe
Any suggestions or ideas????

thanks

[Madaboutdiscus]

Id start with changing at least 50% of the water daily possibly twice a day until the cycle is done.

-Victoria

[troysdiiscus]

Hey Victoria, yeah going to do a 75% tonight when I get off, just weird, didnt do anything different that I have done over the almost 2 years in this tank. All the equipment working fine, I can see if my bio load changed or if my FX5 stop working and all my BB died off but nothing added to tank to make this happen!! :mad:
Id start with changing at least 50% of the water daily possibly twice a day until the cycle is done.

-Victoria

[Elliots]

Hopefully you clean your filters with tank water, if not you may have uncycled your tank. Do you change water with tap water? If you use tap water do you check you tap water pH before every change? I do not know where you are located but you may have "Winter Water" that is different from water the rest of the year.

[troysdiiscus]

like I mentioned I have had this tank up and running for almost 2 years. Yes I rinse my media in tank water. Water levels in my tap have not changed. That is the first thing I checked. I also aggiatate it for 24 hours. I only washed out the XP canister in tank water last night to see if some reason it got dirtier than normal but no was pretty clean. I use prefilters on all my intakes.
Hopefully you clean your filters with tank water, if not you may have uncycled your tank. Do you change water with tap water? If you use tap water do you check you tap water pH before every change? I do not know where you are located but you may have "Winter Water" that is diggerent from water the rest of the year.

[troysdiiscus]

will post a video as soon as wife downloads it. She describes them having grey hair coming off them, which I am sure is them shedding there slime coat. Of coarse I am at work and wont get home till 7:15 tonight. For the life of me dont know what the hell happened and why....I use only the equipment for that tank so no cross. Blows my mind!!!!!!! I am going to do a 80% WC tonight....she says they are huddling up in corner top of tank so I know they are stressing out.....

[troysdiiscus]

here a pic, didnt look like this this morning.....Like I said 80% as soon as I get home...looks almost like an external parasite, fin rot or something..I do have PP and prazipro and furan 2 on hand if needed....please tell me experienced people what you think....
http://i1337.photobucket.com/albums/o661/troyndeb/th_004_zps6a8cd8fb.jpg (http://i1337.photobucket.com/albums/o661/troyndeb/004_zps6a8cd8fb.mp4)

[dirtyplants]

Your tank will house a certain amount of bacteria. You will have a bacteria cycle when you change water, clean substrate, or just having plants that take in nitrates. What this means is your bacteria levels are never a constant. If there is a large die off or cleaned too well bacteria will have to multiple to handle the same level of waste from fish.
In your case your filter (sponge) lost it's air which is needed for the bacteria to thrive. I suspect you had a large die off from the sponge filter failing.
Causing a mini tank cycle, until the bacteria levels can reach the level that is optimum for your tank. Once the sponge filter regains the bacteria level again then the mini cycle will end.
Remember bacteria is a life form, which means the more food the more they multiply, if the food supply can no longer feed all the bacteria some bacteria will die off, as the food source increases so will the bacteria.

[Chicago Discus]

Hey Troy this kinda bites but not to worry looks treatable, Ok first I would find the cause of the issue a few things come to mind. One being water quality changing water is great and very beneficial in the health and well being of the fish. But if your not maintaing and cleaning the other parts of the tank filters, gravel hoses etc.... You can quickly foul the water and cause stress to the fish which can cause this problem. So I would make sure everything is very clean, tank walls, filters gravel etc...The second thing that comes to mind is quality of food make sure that the food you are feeding is not outdated or has gone bad. The third thing is temperature of the tank I would maintain a temperature between 82-84 don't go any higher.

Treatment- From my experience and opinion :)

First I would do a 90% water change on the tank and make sure everything is wiped down and clean. Take out the sponge that didn't have the oxygen running in it and also take out the driftwood and soak in a bleach solution overnight then just water for a few days rinse and let dry for a few more days. Take out the carbon (If you have any in the filters) And In my opinion get some Maroxy+Maarcyn+Maracyn2 and follow the recommended dosage on the packages. Treat with all three at the same time and you should start seeing an improvement. This will take some time to heal so just take your time and try and ring the root of the problem which I mentioned above........I hope this helps.......Josie

[troysdiiscus]

thanks Josie..Yeah it bites because I wipe down my tank twice a week, clean my canisters every two to three weeks alternating the two, one on week 2 one on week 3 then switch. I feed Als FDBW (for a year) frozen Beefheart. Feed twice a day but not over feeding. But anyway doing a 90% tonight. I dont have maroxy, maarcyn and 2 . I will have to pick up tomorrow. Is there anything else I can start to use tonight? All I have is furan 2 prazipro, or should I just wait til the morning?
Hey Troy this kinda bites but not to worry looks treatable, Ok first I would find the cause of the issue a few things come to mind. One being water quality changing water is great and very beneficial in the health and well being of the fish. But if your not maintaing and cleaning the other parts of the tank filters, gravel hoses etc.... You can quickly foul the water and cause stress to the fish which can cause this problem. So I would make sure everything is very clean, tank walls, filters gravel etc...The second thing that comes to mind is quality of food make sure that the food you are feeding is not outdated or has gone bad. The third thing is temperature of the tank I would maintain a temperature between 82-84 don't go any higher.

Treatment- From my experience and opinion :)

First I would do a 90% water change on the tank and make sure everything is wiped down and clean. Take out the sponge that didn't have the oxygen running in it and also take out the driftwood and soak in a bleach solution overnight then just water for a few days rinse and let dry for a few more days. Take out the carbon (If you have any in the filters) And In my opinion get some Maroxy+Maarcyn+Maracyn2 and follow the recommended dosage on the packages. Treat with all three at the same time and you should start seeing an improvement. This will take some time to heal so just take your time and try and ring the root of the problem which I mentioned above........I hope this helps.......Josie

[OC Discus]

Good luck Troy!

[Rudustin]

I had the same problem about two weeks ago in my 125 gallon show tank. Live in a condo and was on holiday for two weeks and then came home not realizing that the building had replaced the boiler. Didn't check my water and did a massive water change on all my tanks including the 125 with aged tap water. Evidently I didn't run the water enough while filling the containers of aging water and of course the first container is the container I used to do the water change on that particular tank. Body slime started to shred on all my blue based discus and then my Pigeon bloods started to hide along with the entire tank. I panicked! Instead of calling Hans or anyone else for that matter I started changing eighty percent of the water in that tank for four days with little improvement. You could see that the gills in all of the adult fish were irritated. I continued doing the water changes and then medicated the tank with general cure for the next two days. I got an immediate improvement by then but it was a slippery slope for several days. Once it passed I did send Hans an email and he slapped me verbally for medicating the tank but I couldn't think of anything else to do since the water changes weren't producing a noticeable change. I think I over reacted and I would listen to Josie and be patient because it will take a little while for the discus to recover. Good luck and sorry this had to happen. Rufus

[troysdiiscus]

thanks Rufus, frustrating as he** that I do WC everynight and bam.....but will keep doing what I am doing and ride it out...
I had the same problem about two weeks ago in my 125 gallon show tank. Live in a condo and was on holiday for two weeks and then came home not realizing that the building had replaced the boiler. Didn't check my water and did a massive water change on all my tanks including the 125 with aged tap water. Evidently I didn't run the water enough while filling the containers of aging water and of course the first container is the container I used to do the water change on that particular tank. Body slime started to shred on all my blue based discus and then my Pigeon bloods started to hide along with the entire tank. I panicked! Instead of calling Hans or anyone else for that matter I started changing eighty percent of the water in that tank for four days with little improvement. You could see that the gills in all of the adult fish were irritated. I continued doing the water changes and then medicated the tank with general cure for the next two days. I got an immediate improvement by then but it was a slippery slope for several days. Once it passed I did send Hans an email and he slapped me verbally for medicating the tank but I couldn't think of anything else to do since the water changes weren't producing a noticeable change. I think I over reacted and I would listen to Josie and be patient because it will take a little while for the discus to recover. Good luck and sorry this had to happen. Rufus

[troysdiiscus]

Good luck Troy!

thanks.......

[Rudustin]

thanks Rufus, frustrating as he** that I do WC everynight and bam.....but will keep doing what I am doing and ride it out...

This two shall pass! Just water change, water change and water change until the bio filter kicks in and all should be well. Frustrating! I feel your pain! Rufus

[dirtyplants]

Try the water changes, let your sponge filter repopulate. I suspect it will clear up, unless you have suspected some lingering illness, and behavior had strange behavior before the air filter failed.

[Chicago Discus]

thanks Josie..Yeah it bites because I wipe down my tank twice a week, clean my canisters every two to three weeks alternating the two, one on week 2 one on week 3 then switch. I feed Als FDBW (for a year) frozen Beefheart. Feed twice a day but not over feeding. But anyway doing a 90% tonight. I dont have maroxy, maarcyn and 2 . I will have to pick up tomorrow. Is there anything else I can start to use tonight? All I have is furan 2 prazipro, or should I just wait til the morning?

Clean fresh water will do fine if you can't get the meds just make sure things are clean and you should be fine....Josie