Very strange behavior

[Bizarro252]

Hello!
Still new to this Discus game, and still learning what's normal for how these crazy guys act. Quite different then my other Cichlids (angels and Mbuna...)

Quick details:
55 gal tank, 2x sponge filters, 1x Fluval 406 with a spray bar.
30 gal WC every 2 days, peak Nitrates of 10-12ppm
Feed 2-3 times a day a mix of homemade food, mysis, bloodworms, flake.
Bought from Discus Hans as 3" in April, now are 5-5.5" Group of 6.

My checkerboard seems to gorge himself often, I caught him puking before and learned from here that indeed fish can puke... But the other day was different. I had fed and then did a WC, about 5 min after I was done with the WC my checkerboard started looking kind of dazed, moving slowly, bouncing (gently) off the glass) - then he started kinda convulsing, his mouth kept opening wide, figured he overate and was going to puke - but then he stopped...stopped breathing and sunk to the bottom of the tank.

TRYING not to panic I watched as he lay there, not breathing for about 30 seconds before he slowly started to breath again. About a minute later he righted himself and seemed normal except for breathing heavy now.

Been keeping an eye on him, this was two day ago and all seems fine - he is eating, color is good, fins are good/relaxed...


What the heck? Do Discus play dead? Did he choke?

Thanks!


Pic of him(?) since why not!


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[Phillydubs]

Gorgeous fish first of all... that is quite odd behavior!

Did you hear a bang? Did he hit something and stun himself? It is possible he ate too big a piece and it got loged somewhere or cut something off for a short period. Do you feed large chunks of food? Maybe smaller and maybe if you know he goes nuts, feed slowly and really spread the food out so he cant go all fat boy on it.

[Bizarro252]

Gorgeous fish first of all... that is quite odd behavior!

Did you hear a bang? Did he hit something and stun himself? It is possible he ate too big a piece and it got loged somewhere or cut something off for a short period. Do you feed large chunks of food? Maybe smaller and maybe if you know he goes nuts, feed slowly and really spread the food out so he cant go all fat boy on it.

Lol - "all fat boy on it" haha
I dont think I feed to big of chunks, I sure try not to anyways... my homemade food I run through a food processor, and then once frozen I slice it up into thin pieces so they melt basically instantly when they hit the water. Good idea spreading it out though, I usually feed on one side of the tank only, and can easily change that.

I didnt hear or see him stun himself. It was very strange and scary! Been keeping an eye on him and no weirdness so far since that I have seen. He looks healthy so I am hoping it was just a fluke!

And thank you :)

[Bizarro252]

Watched this happen again, same fish the other day and it was not around feeding time. Called Hans and sadly he was stumped as well. I will try to get a video for him and will for sure follow up here if I ever get an idea what is going on as this is freaking me out. He seems completely fine normally, he is the most skittish of the bunch but other than that... stumped..

[nc0gnet0]

I have never seen this behavior, a video would be a learning experience for us all.

[brewmaster15]

Im guessing he had the equivalent of a stroke or heart attack. Just as it happens to humans it happens to many other species. We are far more similar than different.:(

[Bizarro252]

Al,
Several times though? :(

Reading and reading I came across a lot of 'fainting' tetra posts, seems somewhat common - seen some people say it happened to their african cichlids...so getting closer to the right family... lol. He IS the most skittish one by far, wondering if he is having panic attacks...

I set up a web cam to record all day tomorrow...will see if we can catch it.

[Bizarro252]

Videos!! Set up a cam with an SD card in it for days and let it go, it takes a snapshot every 3 minutes so I can quickly flip through the pics to find what I was looking for. I snipped these down and lowered the quality a bit to make them easily uploaded and watched - if anyone is interested in a higher quality version, or more before/after timeframe just let me know.

These are from three different days, he did this fainting thing 5/6 days I recorded... these were the ones that were best captured... Is he just knocking himself out? He always acts very weird right before he does this, which I tried to capture...

Thoughts? Thanks!

https://vimeo.com/244775751
https://vimeo.com/244775454
https://vimeo.com/244775049

[Phillydubs]

This sure is strange indeed...

And these are just random occurrences throughout the day? This wasn't say after a feeding or no one was around the tank? Nothing else to connect it to. It also surprises me that the other fish don't seem to react at all...

[Phillydubs]

Yes, reading back I see you originally connected it to post feeding, gorging and the water change...

Has he ever stopped eating or darkened or anything like that?

[Bizarro252]

Yes, reading back I see you originally connected it to post feeding, gorging and the water change...

Has he ever stopped eating or darkened or anything like that?

When I happened to catch it myself it was after feeding - the first time. I caught him again 2+ hours after feeding another time and then I set this camera up.

All occurrences occurred when I was not even home except one - so he is scaring himself (there are other fish tanks in this room, directly across is an Mbuna tank that always has a lot of movement but... not sure I think thats tripping him up.... and ya the others do not react at all except to dodge him.

On one you can see him doing that mouth thing I saw him do when I caught him myself once, he looks like he is...coughing? Just large rapid mouth moments - he puked the time I saw him do this in front of me, but not in these videos.

Water is good, or should be! Tests fine! I keep up on my water changes (every other day, 70%) - I am wondering if he has something wrong in the head...like a defect - some sort of seizure disorder...

Edit:
Missed your last question. Never seen him get dark (the Skribbled does, he gets almost black, but will come in and out of that - I think he is camouflaging... This guy only fades, overnight - like in the morning he is VERY light in color, takes about an hour for his colors to come back.

[Phillydubs]

Is your screen name here based off his behavior?? If so, VERY FITTING!! LOL

I really don't have an answer, I don't think anyone will.... Seems like a wait and see and hope it doesn't get worse or cause any other issues. As long as he is eating and not showing other issues then maybe you just got yourself a special needs discus is all. Sounds like you have a good routine, the other fish, this one included look great, growing great, eat well, tank looks clean...

May have to chalk it up to mystery bizarro behavior and call it a day my dude!!

[Bizarro252]

Haha, thanks Phil :) I called Hans to see if he had a quick answer after I saw it the second time and he was also stumped and asked for a video, I passed them over to him last night as well - will update here with what I hear.

Thanks!

[bluelagoon]

If I was to guess.I would say concussion.A head injury by the actions in the video.

[jmf3460]

his actions are....bizarre.....not to imply that your screen name was a foreshadowing or anything. it looks like he has a screw loose as we might saw about human beings...like he is one crayon short of a whole box. I really don't see a reason to worry over this though. unless he crashes into something and gets a wound it just seems like this is how he is going to be lol. it looks like he stops just short of slamming into the glass.

[Bizarro252]

Ya, whats the most strange to me is that he seems to start getting antsy - then just runs around till he knocks into something hard enough to knock himself out, in one of those videos you can hear him hit the back glass pretty hard. I was mostly hoping there wasnt like a parasite or something that is causing him to feel something and freak out trying to get something off - he looks good though, he eats less than the others and is the most shy but still eating.

My wife named him Hei Hei - from Moana.... poor guy lol

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[Jenene]

Yes Matt, like I figured not an easy answer. The one that makes the most sense, like Al mentioned is just some kind of physical attack... we mention eplilepsy kind of joking a while back but there is just no way to know... maybe you could send the video to a professor of fish somewhere.. Cornell University? definitely an interesting if not disturbing behavior...