What's wrong with my discuss???

[joscadi]

I am new to the discus hobby and I'm afraid I did not start out in the best of circumsatnces. About a week or so ago, I bought a discus from the LFS. Two days later, I bought two more. I made the mistake of placing them all in the community tank with 5 of my clown loaches and about 20 1" neon tetras. Prior to getting the last two, I did a thorough cleaning of my 60 gal. tank. I change 70% of the water, and vacummed the substrate. I added plants (mainly swords and one other plant with really long leaves).

It's been one week and the fish are not eating. I have been putting a combination of tetramin crisps and tetraminn color bits. Tomorrow, I will buy some live bloodworms so hopefully they will eat that.

The real problem happened today while I was doing the water change. Prior to the water change, all of them were swimmingly nicely. After I did tne 25% water change, one of them was swimming in a funny way. It kept smashing into things i.e. wall of the aquarium, rocks, etc. Then it will slowly sink to the gravel and its body would almost be paralell to the substrate. It would just lay flat. Once in a while it would swim to another place in the aqaurium, but it would remain flat on the substrate. Sometimes, it woul use the walls of the aquarium to prop its body up.

What's wrong with my discuss?

FYI - my tank is 6o gals. and has a cannister filter. Some of the inhabitants are 5 clown loaches, about 4" each, and 20 neon tetras that are about 1" each. The temp is at 84. Everything else is at 0 ppm.

I am afraid that this one is not going to last through the night. The other two seems fine and are swimming around the tank.

[Carol_Roberts]

It sounds like bloat or a swim bladder infection. Try Magnesium Sulphate (Epsom Salt) at 1 tablespoon per 10 gallons. If that doesn't do the trick in a few hours, then it may be a swim bladder infection which is very hard to treat. Or maybe the pH or temperature of the change water was very different that the tank water and this fish was sensitive to the change?

[Cosmo]

If all was fine before the water change.. I'd guess the replacement water was too different in ph or temp, or, had chlorine/chloramines/ammonia in it :(

[puffnstuff]

have never kept discus but now have the bug and an doing research.......the obsessive compulsive nature of a researcher......however I have kept many other fish and am curious.....do discus NOT need to be in a cycled tank???? If your tank is cycled why do you NOT have nitrate????? This is a fundamental fact of cycled tanks.... You must have at least something...??? yes...??? Perhaps in Discus it is different...as I say I am currently doing my research............homework. Will be VERY interested to hear the responses as it will go far in determining my course. Anyway....it's 4:00 in the morning and I NEED more tea....... :book: :book:

[RyanH]

You would indeed have nitrates in a cycled tank as this is the final product of the biofilter. However, nitrates should be removed via water changes and ideally kept below 5ppm.

hth
-Ryan

[joscadi]

At first I really thought that it was the water change. The PH in my tank was at 6.0 and when I tested the tap water, it was at 7.5.

But this is what had happened. On Thursday, I bought my frst discuss. It was doing very wall. On Saturday, I noticed that my ammonia level was really high so I decided to do a 80% water change on my 60 gal. tank. Unfortunately, I did not use aged water. I placed the discus in the bucket with the water from the aquarium. When the temp. in the aquarium had reached about 84 degrees, I placed my first discuss back in the tank. On Sunday, I bouth two more discuss from the LFS. They were all doing very well until the second water change on the following Thursday. I did a 25% water change and one of the two dsicuses I bought last Sunday started swimming sideways. By the evening, it was a goner. The following day, the original discus I bought last Thursday was showing the same symptoms. Sunday night, the first discus I bought was also a goner. The last one I have (the one I bought on Sunday), is still alive and doing well.

In theory, if it was the water change, then all of my discus should have perished. Could it be something else? Could I have bought discus fish that were bad to begin with? I did notice at the LFS that the tank that I got my discus was crowded with other juveniles. Also, it is possible that the stress was just too much for these juveniles. I placed them in a community tank with 20 neon tetras that are about 1" long and 5 clown loaches that are about 4" long. They all seemed to enjoy each other's company.

[Carol_Roberts]

Could have been many things . . .
No quarantine and newest discus could have brought disease.
Was change water the same pH as tank water and chlorine neutralized?
Moving fish to a bucket to change water is not a good idea. Stressful for discus and ammonia could build up in bucket.
What did you do with all the loaces, etc during the water change - all in the same bucket?

Read some of the stickied posts in the beginner section - especially how to set up a discus tank for juveniles and how to do water changes. They will give you some ideas if you want to try discus again.