What is Your Worst Discus Horror Story?

[CammieTime]

I am just curious what everyone's worst experience with raising discus was.

What is the worst thing that ever happened, and what did you learn?

[DiscusDreamer]

didn't buy my Discus from a sponsor, so now i don't have show quality fish!
Will buy from sponsor next time....

[Don Trinko]

Bought 7 discus. (cheap!) I was told they had been sick (clear poo) and 2 would probably die so I can't complain abought the dealer. Those two died within 2 weeks. they were not eating and the others were and still are picky eaters.
Tryed metro (twice), prazi(twice), levanasol(twice), furan, and erythromysin .(all this over a 4 month period) Still had clear poo. Meanwhile 2 thin ones died after abought 5 months. 3 are now alive. One had bacterial infection that Erythro cured, 2 still have clear poo that I am trying metro for the 3rd time.
Before you ask; I have 3 other tanks with big healthy discus that I raised from young 2 to 2.5" discus.
Whayt did I learn? Make sure the fish you buy are eating well and look good. Don T.

[cquann]

When i have started hobby over 2yrs ago. LFS owner trick my into buying their low, low, low quality discus and not even cheap either. I m telling you guys HAVE TO BUY DISCUS FROM OUR SPONSOR GUYS to keep this forum alive. So we all can enjoy this peacefully hobby.

[Eddie]

Well, when I first decided to raise discus back in 96, I read everything I could about giving them the best care in the world :computer:. I started with a 55 gallon barebottom tank and made sure the water conditions would be perfect :thumbsup:. I put some small little guppy like fish in the tank to cycle the tank. Once my tank was ready for Discus, I ordered some discus from a company called Universal Discus in CA. I had been in contact with the breeder and had my choices made. We arranged everything and it all seemed to come together until I went to pickup my fish at the Airport in Little Rock AR. I was waiting at the freight pick-up when the plane arrived that was supposed to have my fish. My fish missed their connecting flight :waaa:! There were no more flights coming in that evening so my fish had to stay overnight at whatever airport they were at and get the first flight in morning! I was gutted, terrified...I thought they were gonna be dead:scared:! I spent the night at the airport, in the car :sleeping3:, waiting for the first plane in. I didnt sleep a minute, worrying about the fish. When they arrived, I rushed home as fast as I could, probably speeding like a bat out of hell :flame:. When I got home, I pulled the fish out of the box, that had been so well packaged. I had something like 6 discus and the breeder put an extra one in for me, a golden of some sort. The fish were all stressed, a few sideways, all totally black! I went through the acclimation process and let the fish out. They were scattered around the tank hiding in the corners, at the top, anywhere. I slept on the couch near the tank all night. One of the goldens died but it was a free one so I didn't take it too hard. The others ended up getting insanely sick :sick2:, losing their slime coat, breathing heavy, clamped fins...the works. I got with the breeder and he instructed me that maybe my little guppys that I use to cycle the tank may have had flukes and since my fish were weak, they easily were infested. I took the guppys out before I put the discus in the tank. Anyways, I got a hold of some formalin and dosed the whole tank. Did a some huge waterchanges. 100% everyday, the fish started to recover. I was doing so many WCs twice a day at times and my fish totally recovered 100% :drummer:. It was one of the most stressful times of my life :crazy:. I was happiest person in the world when those fish recovered but boy was it alot of hard work. :D

So more of a horror and a success story! :)

Eddie

[kenhappen2u]

the day the wife told me no more tanks .

[Roxanne]

I don't have a horror story...I have a ding dang horror EPIC!!

Got discus before the tank was cycled, :confused:what's cycled??.I had smaller fully cycled tanks with gouramis that were fine, but that was a fluke cos I didn't know anything about the nitrogen cycle...in that case it would have been fine if I had LEFT my big tanks ALONE! But NOOOOO! Roxanne has to fiddle with the canister filters thinking they should be CLEANED so many times that the tank would bloom, I'd freak out thinking it was some sort of toxic cloud that would kill them, so...emptied the tank to where the discus were just covered in water, one of my twin daughters sneaks in behind me while i'm running back and forwards with water, and dumps a whole tin of fish flake into the tank!!! I walk back into the room and notice my BB tank suddenly has a substrate! I got closer and realised what she'd done and that it was a thick layer of flake on the bottom of the tank...well..freak out time again, moving fish around, moving water, mucking with filters....three months later and I'm Still waiting for the big tanks to cycle.....WHY is it taking so long??? Well, just found out from the very wonderful KaceyO that my PH is too low for the ammonia to be processed...

I got more....

:):)

[1077]

biggest horror was looking at a very large and very sick discus at LFS last week. Looking at the fish head on. It looked exactly like the symbol representing the ace of diamonds in a deck of playing cards. I had saw this same fish some three weeks ago and at that time it was in hospital tank. The lady (owner) said she was getting some new discus and that i should come have a look see when they arrived which was last week. I saw some decent young discus and was shocked to see the large sick discus in the same tank with the new arrivals. Several of the young discus had obvious worms and I feared the large sick fish would pass on whatever was ailing it to the new arrivals and said so. The lady said the sick fish wouldn't eat in the hospital tank so she had to put it back in the display tank. I have seen sick fish before but truly , nothing like this. Were it a horse or a dog i think it would have been put down. The owner actually was confused that I had no interest in any of the new arrivals. I am preparing to purchase a couple sub adult fish as soon as finances permit and fully intend to do so here.

[DiscusOnly]

Almost a horror story.

I came home from work yesterday to notice a quiet garage. The breaker tripped again! It got much colder yesterday and I guess all the heaters came on so it tripped my 15amp breaker.

I rush to empty 10% water out each tank to fill it with hot water. The tanks were down to 70 degree so I guess it tripped after I went to work. Instead of taking more chances, I shut down 2 of the tanks and squeezed about 20 in a tank.

[target]

the day the wife told me no more tanks .

LOL, that is the worst thing that can happen.

[GrillMaster]

Guess it began in my old house...I had 2 tanks growin out juvies and I was out doing the business thing. I had dropped the guys off at a job and had to run back to the house for some equipment. I decided while I was at the house I would do the WC's in the upstairs room where the tanks were. Did the WC's and started fillin the age barrel up.
The phone rang so I ran downstairs to answer it. It was one of my help explainin that the mower had broke and they didn't know what ta do. I jumped in the truck and headed over to the site. I got the mower up an runnin again and started back to the house. It wasn't till I answered the call from my landlord that I had completely forgot that I was filling up my aging barrel. "Hey Mark this is Bill...Your next door neighbor just called me an said there was water runnin out yer front door and out of the second floor."
I then realized the seriousness of the situation. I got to the house and opened the front door to see what looked to me like a rain forest! There was water dripping everywhere. I was demoralized to say the least.
That wait for the landlord to show up was about the longest 20 mins of my life! ;)
Needless ta say that was the end of havin tanks upstairs in that house...I have since moved and have a basement with the old cement floor now. :D :D :D

[Condor]

I tried to write mine but it still brings back bad memory's. Sorry, maybe in a couple years.

Adrian

[Roxanne]

...It wasn't till I answered the call from my landlord that I had completely forgot that I was filling up my aging barrel.. ..

Maaate. Sorry but I had to laugh! :D:p:DThat's not a horror story, it's a ding dang funny home video is what that is. This is the kind of silly crap that I do.:o I knew as soon as you said, "the phone rang" what you were going to say.....:D

:balloon:
:)

[GrillMaster]

Maaate. Sorry but I had to laugh! :D:p:DThat's not a horror story, it's a ding dang funny home video is what that is. This is the kind of silly crap that I do.:o I knew as soon as you said, "the phone rang" what you were going to say.....:D

:balloon:
:)

Well I have ta admit that I was pretty traumatized with the whole ordeal. Havin the rain forrest in my livin room kinda put a damper on raisin discus in the upstairs part of the house. :(

[Roxanne]

Yes, well some people will go to extremes for their discus in order to create the AMAZON environment for them:D:D:D


Sorry CammieTime, I messed with the genre of this thread, this thread is supposed to be about horror stories, wanna start another 1 titled, funniest discus stories?:D

:):):)

[blkrob]

I have a 135g planted tank for a few years with little to no issues. I did all the reading and waited about a year before even thinking about getting discus. I got 8 of the most beuatiful sub-adults from Obssessed a memeber here. They were added to the tank without incident. A few months went by, I routine down.:D I was proud of myself and didn't kill any fish, the plants were growing and they fish started to pair off!!!

:mad: Alright here's the horror. I was cleaning the tank and turned to C02 off using the timer. I had just changed out good timer. The timer that had more then 1 on/off time to a simple on and off timer. I was trying somethings with the lights. The kids were in the room with me so when I was done we all went to bed.
I woke up the next morning to my kid screaming. She got her hand stuck between the leg and waist of a barbie doll. So on the way back upstairs I looked in on the tank. Mother#)@#$!%)#^ everything was floating. 8 Discus, 40 rummynoses, 20 neons, several rams, cories, my 4 fancy pleco's peppermint, medusa, 2 L134's. even the shrimp!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! They were discolored even white. It was my first family day off in months. I had to take the family to breakfast. So I turned the o2 pumps on and left the house. Hell, my wife was almost in tears for me! I had written it all off as a lost. I'll never get fish again.:angry: We came back and I started pulling dead fish out. S.O.B. I had two discus that weren't dead. A couple of cories, 2 rummy's and about 6 neons still with me. Up until about 2 months ago I wouldn't even add anything else to the tank.

So I learned never allow your routine to change, don't change equipment unless your absolutely sure it's going to be an improvemnt. When you do, make sure it's working before you go to bed. The hell with the family after something goes wrong. Attend to the fish you maybe able to save them! And best of all the more expensive they lesson learned the more the experience is LEARNED!

I know this was long but I never really got to share it. I told Al and Mark when I meant them. Which in turn motivated me to really try it again.

[Deepak]

Well mine is not an exactly a horror story but here it goes.........

Once I was siphoning as usual but sub-consciously got busy with something else in between. So much so that I forgot about the siphoning altogether !! After some time when my son went into the room & screamed, I remembered about the siphon. I rushed to the room to find my 8 fullgrown Discus in an almost empty tank !!! Immediately I collected some water from a spare Angel tank and moved all the Discus into the bucket. Then I put the tank to refill. Luckily not much time had passed and the fish didn't suffer. Though I had taken the risk of using Angel water with Discus. I thought it was a better bet than using 100 % chlorinated water and de-chlorinating with the fish in.

Lesson learnt : Never multi-task while attending to Fish.

[mikel]

Actually, you could use the declor like Prime to do an emergency water rescue. It's quite effective, but you can always use more than the recommended dosage to make sure. So long as the water temp is around the same or a bit warmer, and you have not been fussing with the ph between the tap and the tank, you should have no problem. I think the person or people who invented prime or its equal should be knighted!

[TankWatcher]

Started off as a horror story, but had a happy ending after all.

Hadn't been around the tank earlier in the day & when the lights went on, every single fish was either down & laying on it's side, or mouth down at the gravel, tail up. No fish was swimming - not a one.

Pics of only some of the sick fish
Wild Blue & Wild Heckel
http://i95.photobucket.com/albums/l128/TankWatcher/138G_523L_Discus%20Tank/081011_sick_000_0668.jpg

Alenquer
http://i95.photobucket.com/albums/l128/TankWatcher/138G_523L_Discus%20Tank/081011_sick_000_0670.jpg


another wild heckel
http://i95.photobucket.com/albums/l128/TankWatcher/138G_523L_Discus%20Tank/081011_sick_000_0666.jpg

Lately, I'd been thinking I might be underfeeding, so after they ate the previous night, I threw in a couple extra pieces of home made beef heart then went to bed.

Anything different to usual
Extra beef heart last night
Saw left over bits of beef heart in the tank today (normally no left overs).
C02 hose had come apart from the regulator. So no C02 was pumping into the tank (instead was pumping into my cupboard).

Action Taken
50% water change
double dose of prime
dose of amtrite down

Slowly they all became upright again. The wilds were the slowest to recover, the heckels (the youngest) were the very last to start swimming again. Neons, sterbais, otos & at least 2 out of 4 apistos were fine. The 2 other apisto didn't make it.

Half an hour later, they're all looking & acting as if nothing ever happened. They are scavenging tank bottom, looking for food.

Don't they know what a scare they gave their mum :shock:
It's like they were playing an April Fool trick

Recovered WB
http://i95.photobucket.com/albums/l128/TankWatcher/138G_523L_Discus%20Tank/081011_recovered_000_0672.jpg

Recovered Albino
http://i95.photobucket.com/albums/l128/TankWatcher/138G_523L_Discus%20Tank/081011_recovered_000_0673.jpg

I'm glad they have recovered, but I don't know why this happened. Probably I never will. Some ppl I spoke with (via forums) had this theory:
The co2 concentration in the air immediately around the tank rose to dangerous levels.. the O2 in the water relies on the exchange at the water surface with the O2 in the air.. if the air around the tank had high levels of co2, and the co2 had "displaced" the O2 in the air immediately around the tank then the exchange at the water surface would have been low in O2... and high in co2. That coupled with plants at night using up O2 as well as fish... resulted in dangerously low O2 levels in the water.

The difference is when the co2 escaped into the cupboard it was uncontrolled - and normally O2 is being exchanged at the water surface at the same time - so normally there is fresh O2 going into the water as well as the co2.But some others dismissed that theory as not likely, but couldn't suggest an alternative theory.

I was just very happy that I was at home to do the water change. I was a very scared discus mum for a while there

[Dkarc@Aol.com]

Wow...where to start. I guess one of the fastest and extremely tragic things that happened to me is when one of my prized Leopard males decided he thought he could fly....well he couldnt...and the tank was around 7ft in the air on the top shelf of a pallet rack. Was nice and dry and stuck to the tile floor when I got home from work.

If we wanted to discuss non-discus horror stories (but still fish related) than I have a million and a half from working at an aquarium maintenance company. BIG $$$$$ horror stories...

-Ryan

[hag]

well... I was in a petco one time and someone called me. i turned around swinging my handbag and waked a jar of batas to the floor. OMG! water was everywhere and fish went flying. An employee said it was ok and would save then by putting them in more water but... when she picked them up she dropped them and.... they didn't more anymore. I cried.

[jimmyjoe]

I purchased some discus from lets say a sponsor that is no longer a sponsor on this forum. It was years ago now that I recall the horror, matter of fact isn't even selling discus anymore, but still has a web site. Well, here's what happen and the horror is that it was my own damn fault. Received some discus and found out some of my tanks were leaking had to do some real fast decision making. Most of my fish were sub-adults and while removing and placing them in new and QT tanks mixed some fish up with the new arrivals. Well didn't notice any problems right away even knowing I screwed up on all the misplaced and QT fish, left them as is thinking I'll just make them all QT tanks till I can make them all better. Well, then the crap hit the fan I had so many sick discus I didn't know what to do. What can I say I lost 27 discus in 2 days nothing I could do helped my sick discus, actually I probably helped in there dilema. I was on this forum day and night looking and reading up on all discus disease's, members trying to help but to no avail. The sponsor helped in the long run and sold me some new discus at a discount price after I bleached all my tanks and got them up and running once again. So my moral to most horror stories is when you receive new fish is QT, QT and then QT somemore.......................................... ......Jim

[LizStreithorst]

Cryptobia.

[Vongerlach]

Bought a beautiful red pigeon blood and three weeks later if jumped out of the tank!

[cich4fish]

similar story,I was unsure about buying fish over the net so I went to my lfs and he recieved a assorted discus order.I just wanted to see my discus in person before purchasing.I picked out 3 of the best he had(I know 3 is not enough)After about three weeks one of the red turks turned darker and started white poo and died.Then the blue diamond held on for a while before I had to end his misery then the last turk followed suit.:(

I can't stand watching my fish get sick and die.lesson learned never buy from a lfs.I purchased 4 discus from Kenny and 4 from sunrise tropicals and all fish are doing great and growing.:D

[Ardan]

Great thread!:):):)

My worst memories in recent times are
1. losing all 19 discus to chlorine poisoning (water barrell didn't have enough agitation when the city added a large amount of chlorine) now I always use dechlor.

2. Lightning struck causing a power surge that stuck on my heaters in 2 discus tanks. I lost all discus except 2 as the temperature had reached over 100F. Now I use 2 smaller heaters in each tank and I use a temperature controller.

there were many trials and errors in my lifetime with discus, including diseases, not enough water changes, bad stock, ......
but with the great forum like Simplydiscus I have learned a ton:)
Ardan

[trebor69]

Started off as a horror story, but had a happy ending after all.

Hadn't been around the tank earlier in the day & when the lights went on, every single fish was either down & laying on it's side, or mouth down at the gravel, tail up. No fish was swimming - not a one.

Pics of only some of the sick fish
Wild Blue & Wild Heckel
http://i95.photobucket.com/albums/l128/TankWatcher/138G_523L_Discus%20Tank/081011_sick_000_0668.jpg

Alenquer
http://i95.photobucket.com/albums/l128/TankWatcher/138G_523L_Discus%20Tank/081011_sick_000_0670.jpg


another wild heckel
http://i95.photobucket.com/albums/l128/TankWatcher/138G_523L_Discus%20Tank/081011_sick_000_0666.jpg

Lately, I'd been thinking I might be underfeeding, so after they ate the previous night, I threw in a couple extra pieces of home made beef heart then went to bed.

Anything different to usual
Extra beef heart last night
Saw left over bits of beef heart in the tank today (normally no left overs).
C02 hose had come apart from the regulator. So no C02 was pumping into the tank (instead was pumping into my cupboard).

Action Taken
50% water change
double dose of prime
dose of amtrite down

Slowly they all became upright again. The wilds were the slowest to recover, the heckels (the youngest) were the very last to start swimming again. Neons, sterbais, otos & at least 2 out of 4 apistos were fine. The 2 other apisto didn't make it.

Half an hour later, they're all looking & acting as if nothing ever happened. They are scavenging tank bottom, looking for food.

Don't they know what a scare they gave their mum :shock:
It's like they were playing an April Fool trick

Recovered WB
http://i95.photobucket.com/albums/l128/TankWatcher/138G_523L_Discus%20Tank/081011_recovered_000_0672.jpg

Recovered Albino
http://i95.photobucket.com/albums/l128/TankWatcher/138G_523L_Discus%20Tank/081011_recovered_000_0673.jpg

I'm glad they have recovered, but I don't know why this happened. Probably I never will. Some ppl I spoke with (via forums) had this theory:But some others dismissed that theory as not likely, but couldn't suggest an alternative theory.

I was just very happy that I was at home to do the water change. I was a very scared discus mum for a while there

co2 lowers your pH
low pH lowers/eliminates toxic ammonia

co2 hose pops off
pH goes up....nitrite and ammonia go up
fish no likey

and on top of that the uneaten BH really made it worse

just a theory.....

[rfeiller]

i have had too many disasters to mention. certainly one of the worst was i had just completed a 50% water change from tap through a GAC tank on over 40-30gal grow out tanks all on same central system. went into the house (166 aquarium hatchery in garage) i don't remember for what now, but when i went back out into hatchery the water in all of those tanks was black. had to tear the tanks down to nothing move water from each of the tanks that had not had their water changed into the contaminated aquariums.

the water coming out of the tap was 9.5pH (normally somewhere between 7 & 7.5pH. the San Jose Water Company had just put a new concrete pump house on line and had not neutralized the alkali in the cement. SJWC said they had no obligation to reimbusrse me for my losses. And even though they knew i had the hatchery they had no obligation to notify me the problem.

i lost over 500 silver dollar size young discus.

[MostlyDiscus]

owwch.... h8 losing fish. Back in 1990 I had my own business and as such had the ablitiy to put a 150 right in front of my desk. I had just received some Wattley truqs. I had 50 or so mutt discus I had breed(wildbluexcheckerboard) and used a 45 gal trash container for water storage and conditioning. I left work that night only to get a call from the accountant below me stating my toilet was flooding. hmmm I went back and his office was a mess. Puters were shorted,tiles falling. Bad Bad Bad... Of course it was early April. Horror Ed

[Roxanne]

I'll tell ya a funny one...

Moving my BD the other day and I use a big plastic bag, he swims in & out like a trained seal. Anyway, after finished acclimatising him to new tank, I let him go from the bag but, he did a u turn and got caught in the bag with no water & no oxygen. He looked like he had been vacuum sealed. try refilling the bag quickly with water and not laughing at the same time...:D

Rox:)