poop question

[mickeyG]

I know this sounds impossible.....

I have now had my discus for about 3 weeks. I watch them alot. They are in my office/music room. I practice my guitar daily sitting right in front of the tank and they stay at the front when I play. I think they are attracted to the vibrations of the strings.

I have never seen any of these fish poop. With all that I hear about stringy white poop, I just wanted to make sure they don't have that, but I have never seen them poop.

How can this be. I must be looking in the wrong place? but it seems to me that it should be somewhere near those 2 long bottom fins (probably not fins but I don't know what they are called)

Whats up with this?

[BIGFOOT]

They could be bloated. Are their bellies big round, say 3 or 4 hours after they eat? How are they eating? Are they eating aggressively? If you answer yes to the first one and no to the second one I would treat them for bloat. 1 to 2 tbls per 10 gallon of water. I would 1 tbls and wait 12 hours if you see nothing still then I would add would add one more. If you get no poop after 24 hours then I would stop treatment. Because its not working. I would suspect a bacterial problem and would treat with metro at that point.

[Ed13]

Do you keep a sponge over the filter intake?

[lhforbes12]

Michael,
Oftentimes I never see them actually poop, you will sooner of later though. You should however, be seeing feces at the bottom of their tank. If you aren't you may have a problem. btw the fins you are reffering to are called pelvic or ventral fins (pelvic fin is actually the correct term but I prefer ventral fins since it is easier to remember for me because the other paired fins are called pectoral fins),

Larry

[Green Country Discus]

Watch them after you do a water change and they will poop for you, ;) , if they are healthy and well fed. I like to call the pelvic fins legs ( Carol's term and I like it). :D :D

[mickeyG]

Hey Brian

Although their bellies are not small or caved in, they don't get as full as some of the discus I see in pics here on SD. They ALWAYS eat fairly aggressively. And they eat anything - frozen mysis, bloodworms, brine shrimp, tetra color bits, spirulina flakes, spirulina wafers, veggie flakes, etc.

[BIGFOOT]

Check their belly's 3 or 4 hours after they eat and see what they look like. I do this every time just before feed. And I also check for feces and note how much feces in the tank. Also not the color of the poop. They are all good indicators of something being wrong or getting ready to go wrong.


Ed13 Do you keep a sponge over the filter intake?


I would also like to ask what kind of filtration do you run on this tank?

[Cosmo]

Mickey,

It's not uncommon to not see your fish "poop", even if they're doing it regularly. Sometimes you notice the turd coming out, but more often than not you'll simply see it on the bottom... if that is, you have a BB tank. If you have gravel, they can be virtually impossible to see until you vaccuum. If you have gravel, you'll be appalled at the amount of turds the gravel can hide between cleanings.

Turds are obviously effected by the food you feed, and how much you feed. I've noticed that when I fed CBWs virtually exclusively the turds almost immediataly melted into the water column. Feeding color bits, the fish drop reddish colored turds. Feeding flake and various frozen foods the turds are normally black. I actually started a thread on this a long time ago called "turdology" :p but it got locked when a few members went off on a tangent and got ugly with each other. :mad:

If your fish are otherwise acting healthy I wouldn't be overly concerned, white stringey turds indicative of a flagellite problem are impossible to miss as they usually remain attached to the fish for a good period of time and then float in the water column. Bloating too is usually pretty easy to identify and normally easily treated with epsom salts.

Just make sure you keep up a regular cleaning and WC regimen to remove the waste and keep the water quality high.

Jim

[Squiggy]

Cosmo is a turdologist? ....:inquisitive:

[mickeyG]

Turdology--- what a great term - wish I had thought of that and used it in my post title.

I have about 1/8" - 1/4" of eco-complete in the bottom. More like dirt than gravel - pretty darn fine for the most part. I wc 35% with aged water on wednesdays and sundays.

I use a python for the vacuuming/water removal, I pretty much cover ALL of the substrate and to be honest, I hardly scoop up much. When I had a 4" deep substrate (for plants) there was alot of mulm or detritus that I could see, but not with my discus tank.

I am careful not to overfeed - feed twice a day what they can eat in a couple of minutes. I always watch until it is all gone. Sometimes it takes them an extra couple of minutes to eat the leftovers off the substrate.

I will however check their bellies after a few hours (have not been doing this)

They are trying to spawn so I assume they are getting enough food?

[Cosmo]

Mickey,

Not familiar with eco-complete, but it sounds like it would need to be vacuumed similar to sand or you'd suck it all up the syphon tube with each cleaning. Maybe you're missing the turds, or, maybe they're disolving between your WC days?? If they're eating, they're pooping :D

Check your nitrate level and if it's elevated there's a good chance you're not getting all the waste out when you clean.

:confused: turdologist :confused: LOL Never thought of it that way, but... there's a lot to be learned about your fish by what comes out their "bottoms"

Jim

[mickeyG]

Jim -

the superfine portion of the eco does suck-up the tube some but I can get it to go back for the most part - we are talking particles much finer than sand (just a guess - have not sucked up sand before) but heavy enough to work their way back down the tube if I "help them along with technique".

Nitrates stay around 7ppm. (at least for the 3 weeks that I have had my discus tank) Check them a few times a week.

Used to have a bad boy strat and fender tube amp but gave it to my brother.

Michael