Dark red Turk

[manny2004]

Yesterday i came home from work to find my red turk looking extremely dark and hiding in the corners of the tank. My tank and discus have been set up for about seven months. There are a total of six 3-3.5" discus + three yo yo loaches and three ghost shrimps in a planted 55 gal with pressurized CO running 24 hours a day. All water parameters normal and i do a weekly water change of 85-90%. So finding him dark i immediately took him out and placed him in my BB hospital tank and placed aquarium salt and started metro treatment. Before going to bed everything was looking good. he was swimming well, eating blood worms, good gill movements. But when i woke up to goto work this morning i found him on the bottom of the tank not breathing at all. Can someone please shed some light on where i went wrong or what i can do different in the future.

regards,
Manny.

[AADiscus]

I'm not much help here on this one but I do have to ask: why did you treat with metro? One thing to learn in discus is don't start throwing med's in the tank unless you are treating for something you know is wrong with them. IMO Throwing meds in a tank just because, is not good for them. IMO I'm sorry to hear that you lost him/her. :( It's hard when you lose one especially to something you don't know why.

ps....Someone will post more valuable info for you. Sorry I wasn't much help.

[Ardan]

Hi,
I would personally increase wc's with that many fish in a 55 gal.

Also the co2, at night plants give off co2 if there is no light, so I would wonder about co2 levels at night.

just some thoughts, I know its been working for seven months, but the fish have also grown in that time?

hth
Ardan

[Brian_]

At night, plants give off oxygen, not CO2.

[pcsb23]

At night, plants give off oxygen, not CO2.

This is incorrect. Plants consume CO2 during daylight and give off oxygen, during nightime they consume oxygen and give off CO2.

If you do not use a PH controller I would advise connecting your CO2 system to the light system, either by a shared socket or on the timer circuit.

hth,