andre senna
10-08-2015, 03:15 PM
Hi everyone! I will do my best about the english, I do not use it very often !I got some wild discus from hudson, here in Brazil. It was great, eating from my hand, not shy at all. I had four hybrids in this tank, but I liked the wilds so much ,that I decided to give up the hybrids , and get more wilds. so, I get some big red alenquer discus from nhamundá , now I have ten adult discus in a 160 x55x55 cm tank, all from the alenquer, besides one old fish, a red melon.
My water: 0 ammonia and nitrites, ph 7,3, GH less than 50, KH 3,2 german degrees, temp 30 c. I decided not to mess about the ph, as the water is very soft, and the results are unpredictable. no plants, a few branches, a layer of sand, that I decided to removea lot of it because I realized that it was holding too much dirt , besides the 50 % water change and siphoning every week. I have '' slime " growing in my canisters tubes.Maybe it is because of the sand. I have 1 sun sun 2200 liters per hour and one dolphin 1800 liters per hour.I clean botch every 14 days. No algae, just some cyanobacteria, always bothering me.It is in control now, but not gone. The lights are two 40 w lamps turned on 8 hours a day.
The problem is that some new fishes ( a little bigger ) start to chase the old ones, now I have 3 fishes that used to eat a lot not eating at all, they are stressed, they are loooking good, not losing weight, but one of them started to shown very clear and stringy feces, I am a veterinarian, so I did 5 fecal tests, all negative, one fecal citology, just normal bacterial flora, but as I was suspecting of protozoa, or even worms, beside the tests, I decided to use azoo endoparasites anyway, I do not like it so much, I think there is no clear instructions at all, but it was the only option around here, so I use it. No more stringy feces, but these fishes are still not eating at all.
I just do not know what to do, I think it can be just stress, since these fishes were eating pellets before, and stops eating after the new fish starts to dominate the tank. I still do not eliminate worms or protozoa , I saw that fish spiting out food, I have levamisole, but last time I used it in the main tank I had an ammonia spike. maybe I should seperate these fishes and try a metro treatment, diagnose is hard sometimes. Another thing: sometimes one of their gills seems to not work, besides the normal function of the other. No scratching, sometimes I saw a discrete hyperplasia, that is better now, and they used to spit some white stuff sometimes, I was using alkaline and acid buffer together in the new water, I stopped it now. Maybe gill flukes ? or too much organics. I did a test and saw nothing.
I am thinking about divide the tank in two, using an acrilic net, to see if they eat again, away from the more agressive ones. I do not want to take out any fish, but I will do it if necessary, maybe I have too many discus in this tank. I do not like to see fish stressed and not eating. Besides it they look beautiful, good color, no fin rot...
Any thoughts and advice are welcome!
My water: 0 ammonia and nitrites, ph 7,3, GH less than 50, KH 3,2 german degrees, temp 30 c. I decided not to mess about the ph, as the water is very soft, and the results are unpredictable. no plants, a few branches, a layer of sand, that I decided to removea lot of it because I realized that it was holding too much dirt , besides the 50 % water change and siphoning every week. I have '' slime " growing in my canisters tubes.Maybe it is because of the sand. I have 1 sun sun 2200 liters per hour and one dolphin 1800 liters per hour.I clean botch every 14 days. No algae, just some cyanobacteria, always bothering me.It is in control now, but not gone. The lights are two 40 w lamps turned on 8 hours a day.
The problem is that some new fishes ( a little bigger ) start to chase the old ones, now I have 3 fishes that used to eat a lot not eating at all, they are stressed, they are loooking good, not losing weight, but one of them started to shown very clear and stringy feces, I am a veterinarian, so I did 5 fecal tests, all negative, one fecal citology, just normal bacterial flora, but as I was suspecting of protozoa, or even worms, beside the tests, I decided to use azoo endoparasites anyway, I do not like it so much, I think there is no clear instructions at all, but it was the only option around here, so I use it. No more stringy feces, but these fishes are still not eating at all.
I just do not know what to do, I think it can be just stress, since these fishes were eating pellets before, and stops eating after the new fish starts to dominate the tank. I still do not eliminate worms or protozoa , I saw that fish spiting out food, I have levamisole, but last time I used it in the main tank I had an ammonia spike. maybe I should seperate these fishes and try a metro treatment, diagnose is hard sometimes. Another thing: sometimes one of their gills seems to not work, besides the normal function of the other. No scratching, sometimes I saw a discrete hyperplasia, that is better now, and they used to spit some white stuff sometimes, I was using alkaline and acid buffer together in the new water, I stopped it now. Maybe gill flukes ? or too much organics. I did a test and saw nothing.
I am thinking about divide the tank in two, using an acrilic net, to see if they eat again, away from the more agressive ones. I do not want to take out any fish, but I will do it if necessary, maybe I have too many discus in this tank. I do not like to see fish stressed and not eating. Besides it they look beautiful, good color, no fin rot...
Any thoughts and advice are welcome!