How much abuse can a discus take?

[scolley]

Well, my holiday season is starting off with a bang. I sure my fish feel that way anyway...

My fish have absolutly been more nervous this week. I got a new AquaController Jr., and is suspect that it is because my CO2 ppm has been a bit higher as a result. But between uncertainty around tested values of CO2, dKH and pH, it is an uncertain judgment at best. But they have DEFINITELY been more jumpy.


In fact, one jumped completely out of the tank tonight.

The space between the tank and the wall, where it jumped, is VERY narrow. It was too tight to even get fingers into, and I eventually had to slide it closer with a stick, to get the fish within grasping range.

At this point the poor fish has been slide across the floor - 10 minutes out of the water at least. But I DID eventually get my fingers on a fin, and list the fish to safety - dropping it back into the tank with GOSH knows what kind of injuries.

But it did survive - in the short term anyway.

When I dropped it in the tank it looked BADLY affected - huge white spots, scrapes - you name it. Rough looking.

So, should I have just let this fish expire behind the tank? Or will I find tomorrow a fish that is ready and able to recover? - ready to jump out on another day?

[Giniel]

They are quite resilient and usually recover on their own. Just watch the marks for infection . You could even add a little salt to the tank to aid in recovery.

I had one jump out last night while I was at work my husband said he found it about 3 feet away from the tank.So I know it flopped around for a while .I am just lucky my chihuahua didn't get ahold of it. He usually doesn't mess with my fish but he just plopped it right back in there and it is fine today.

Hope that helps
Debbie

[scolley]

They are quite resilient and usually recover on their own. Just watch the marks for infection . You could even add a little salt to the tank to aid in recovery.

I had one jump out last night while I was at work my husband said he found it about 3 feet away from the tank.So I know it flopped around for a while .I am just lucky my chihuahua didn't get ahold of it. He usually doesn't mess with my fish but he just plopped it right back in there and it is fine today.

Hope that helps
Debbie
Thanks Debbie. I'm shocked to say that you appear to be right on target. It was lights out last night (for the tank) when the fish jumped. And when I picked it up it was covered in all kind of stuff from the floor - dust bunnies and such - and I didn't want to delay getting it back in the water a bit. So I dropped it back in without getting a good look. This was one of five fish that are the same size and color. I figured I'd be able to tell which one it was today in the light. It was pretty roughed up looking.

Well today, with the tank lights on now, I cannot even tell which fish it was! Wow!

So in answer to my original question, it appears a healthy discus can take a pretty good bit of abuse.

And thanks for the salt suggestion. But this is a planed tank, so salt's out I'm afraid. Maybe a prophylactic round of PP or FMG instead?

[Polar_Bear]

Personally I wouldn't use anything. Just watch them since you aren't sure which one, to make sure there are no problems. Maybe ease up on fert dosing for a few days and raise the pH up 0.2 or so, only to reduce the CO2 a little and make up for not as many ferts.

[Cosmo]

Seems somewhat strange to me :confused: I've had one Discus jump out of a tank over the past 25 years or so... and that was about 25 years ago.

It somehow managed to get into the fireplace before I found it. Long story short, I found it about 2 hours after it had jumped (had heard a noise, got up and saw nothing amiss and went back to bed), full of soot but still alive. Put him in the tank and rushed to work only to find him dead when I got home :(

Are these fish jumping right at lights out?? Mine jumped out at about 4 AM, long after lights out and long before lights on :confused: Something spooked it, but what?

You might want to buy some of those plastic strips and cut them to cover the open parts of your lid, they're cheap and you get them online just about anywhere. Next time you might not be so lucky.

Jim

[scolley]

The tank has an open top. No hood. So jumping will always be a risk that I'm accepting, because I don't want a hood on the tank.

The fish was spooked by my 11 year old. It was about 4 hours after lights out in the tank, and the room lights were dim. He put his face right up to the tank to see the fish. I guess one was dozing noticed him and went "Yikes!".

The fish have been very skittish for the last several days. I've checked all the water parameters, and everything seems OK. But I have been replacing a lot of hardware in the sand - drilling and screwing in new stuff. This may have them agitated. It is unusual for me to be messing around under the stand for anything more that a few moments. I've had my head in there hours a day for several days now. Fortunately I'm about finished.

[FishLover888]

Here is a quick tip for fish CPR:
Aim the fish mouth at the outlet of a powerhead and hold it there in case like this. Make sure a slow water flow comes out of the gill. Don't get too close to the outlet. You don't want to forcr too much water into the mouth. Sometimes you can bring back a fish that is not breathing at all.

As for the reason it jumped out, I would suspect the CO2 controller is putting a bit too much CO2 in the tank. That can make the fish jump for sure. I would turn off the CO2 for the duration of the vacation. The plants will be OK wihtout it for a while. It is so easy to go wrong while you are away with the CO2, especially you are trying out new controller just before vacation. Not a good idea to me.

[scolley]

It is the CO2. I've got a Milwaukee hand held pH meter. I just dipped it in a reference 4.01 solution and it read 4.0. And then I dipped it in a 7.01 reference solution, it read 7.0. So it's reading correctly.

And in my tank, it is reading 0.4 lower than what the new Aquacontroller probe is reading. So I'm driving the pH 0.4 degrees lower than I want. That just makes no sense. I calibrated the Aquacontroller just a few days ago, using both reference solutions. And then after calibrating, I tested in both solutions to ensure it was reading correctly. Now, just a few days later it is WAY off.

That is disturbing.

Well, at least I know why the fish are skittish.

[pcsb23]

Hi Steve,

I'm not too familiar with the Aquacontroller, I have had milwaukee meters before though. I would trust the milwaukee personally.

As for the jumper, if the water quality isw good in teht ank then it will have a decent chance of surviving and recovering. I would not do very much here, I might have returned it to the tank via a salt dip just to clean it up a bit. Other than that though, I would do nothing.

[Polar_Bear]

Steve,
There probably is nothing wrong with your new controller. Oftentimes people forget that pH meters are effected very strongly by EMF radiation mainly coming from their fluorescent light ballast (it makes no diffence whether the ballast is magnetic or electronic), the best solution is to put the probe and controller as far from the light source and ballast as possible.

[scolley]

I'm not too familiar with the Aquacontroller, I have had milwaukee meters before though. I would trust the milwaukee personally.
Thanks Paul. Actually the Aquacontroller is replacing a Milwaukee SMS 122. This was SUPPOSED to be an upgrade to something more accurate the the SMS 122.

I dunno... I'll have to pull the probe and recalibrate it. See if that helps. It's a brand new probe. Maybe there is some initial drift - don't really know. It was dead on a few days ago. And what's worse, In 3 or 4 days I'm leaving the country for a month. I gotta get this resolved.

As for the water, IMO the quality is great - except of course being a bit carbonated at the moment. That'll get resolved pronto.

And I have identified the fish. It has some scrape marks on one side were I had to slide it across the floor (pushed it with a stick) to a point that was close enough that I could actually get my hand on it to pick it up. So it's got some abrasions.

But I run a UV at night, and the fish seem healthy, so I'm hoping it's a fairly benign environment, at least as far as a planted tank goes.

It's too bad I didn't think to do a salt dip before I stuck it back in the tank. I did think about rinsing it off - it was filthy. But in my panic, I ruled out tap water (chlorine, temp, pH and other issues) and ruled out water from other tanks (pathogen transfer). Too bad the obvious never occurred to me - get a bucket of water from its tank and rinse it in that.

Hindsight is indeed golden.

[scolley]

Steve,
There probably is nothing wrong with your new controller. Oftentimes people forget that pH meters are effected very strongly by EMF radiation mainly coming from their fluorescent light ballast (it makes no diffence whether the ballast is magnetic or electronic), the best solution is to put the probe and controller as far from the light source and ballast as possible.

You are right. I have read that, but also forgot about it. The new Aquacontroller is mounted in the stand in the exact spot my old SMS 122 was. And the probe is in the exact spot the old probe for the SMS 122 was - in-line in the plumbing, under the tank.

The ballasts are mounted in my lights, 4-5 feet away from the controller and probe. Wow. I hope that's not the problem, because if it is, I've got a real problem.

Gonna have to test that though. Thanks for the tip.

[scolley]

Well it wasn't ballasts. Easy to tell - just switch off the lights and see if the pH readings change.

I pulled the probe, and it was reading about 0.4 off of the known pH of my reference solutions. So somehow it got out of wack over the course of a few days. I can't explain it.

So I recalibrated the Aquacontroller. It's reading dead on the money now. I'll see if it changes over the next few days.

The good news anyway is that the fish seems to be doing OK. :) Which is amazing really.

[dandestroy]

just to make sure, you know that the pH probe does not go into the water completely. If so it will break down. You are just supposed to dip about 1" of it into the water (the water is not supposed to touch the black corvering portion of it).

Just asking cause most people that buy that system don't know that, and there is nothing in the instruction, lots of people break them down that way.

[Cosmo]

Since you want an open tank, you might want to consider closing the top of the gap between the tank and the wall. At least that way they won't fall where you can't reach em
Jim

[scolley]

just to make sure, you know that the pH probe does not go into the water completely. If so it will break down. You are just supposed to dip about 1" of it into the water (the water is not supposed to touch the black corvering portion of it).

Just asking cause most people that buy that system don't know that, and there is nothing in the instruction, lots of people break them down that way.

Thanks Francois. That does not apply to me. It's installed in-line, sicking 1-2" into the water. Though I must admit, I've never heard of such a thing. Take a wander over to Plantedtank.net and you'll find hundreds and hundreds of people that keep their pH probes completely submerged 100% of the time - with no problem. It's an intriguing idea. Where did you get it from? This is my third brand of pH probe that I've had, and none (including an expensive Pinpoint) bothered to say anything about not submerging them - a kind of obvious caution for something that is supposed to be stuck in the water.


And Jim - thanks. Good suggestion. My wife told me the same thing. Would be easy to do too. Just a 6" wide piece of wood or cardboard between the stand and the wall would alleviate a lot of aggravation, and possible fish injury, in the future. Thanks.

[korbi_doc]

Just a thought...why not put an "egg crate" cover that we use for fluorescent lights on top...would still be "open", but fish couldn't get thru it....I've used this for my 110g tank that has no top on it....(then I did put a solid pc of plastic over it, cuz the temp would drop, lol), Dottie ;)