Gasping Discus

[colinlp]

We woke up this morning to find one of our discus gasping at the surface and looking a bit pale (although that may have been the light).
The tank is planted with CO2 injection (30ppm)
I tested the water and all was OK,
We did a 25% water change and he started swimming around after that and now seems fine. All the others were as normal during all this. Any ideas what it might have been?

[Eddie]

Might be lack of o2. Add an airstone or create some surface agitation if there is none. Make sure you are not ODing the tank with Co2. It happens pretty frequently.


Eddie

[colinlp]

Thanks Eddie. That's what I thought but I was unsure because of the others being OK. I've not used an airstone at night as the ph goes up from 6.7 to 7.1 as the co2 disipates, it's been very stable as is now with no airstone. I have turned the bubble rate down a bit, it will raise the ph to about 6.9 at a guess, if I ran an airstone with that would a 0.3 shift overnight cause a problem? If need be I'll ditch the CO2 and cut the light back a little. What do you think?

[Eddie]

I'm not a planted guy, so I have never used co2 but I'm sure someone might be able to chime in the subject. ;) I have dealt with others who have run into situations such as yours and it ends up being too much co2 most of the time. Each fish absorbs o2 differently, some more efficient than others so that particular fish may be the most sensitive to low levels. Try lowering the co2 and see if the fish bounces back.


Eddie

[colinlp]

Agreed, I've cut back the CO2 by half, and will check on him in the morning, I think you are right that I need to run an airstone at night.
They're getting a new tank soon with no CO2 so I think I'll slow it down to a standstill over the next couple of weeks.
Thanks for your help, it's appreciated.

[Keith Perkins]

If I get a little behind on my water changes I always have the same fish start showing/telling me about it. I'd say you were in the same type of situation and fortunately just noticed it right away before the others got in the same boat. Good luck.

[colinlp]

All OK this morning as far as I can see they all seem to be asleep in their normal places.
We're pretty good with our water changes, 25% every night without fail and the gravel gets a real good clean. They ended up with about a 75% change yesterday between the one in the morning and the regular evening change. They nitrates were way down I try and keep them around 10pm for the plants but maybe down is good now the CO2 has been reduced?

Thanks guys, I'm learning slowly :)

[gixeron1wheel]

I had the same thing happen to me with my planted tank. I am using a Co2 tank with a electronic Ph monitor setup, so it was adding C02 as Ph would rise 24 hours a day. I noticed that after water changes fish were gasping. Problem was Ph was a quite bit higher than usual out of the tap and used more Co2 to get Ph down. To make it simple, I was poisoning fish just when I thought I was giving them clean water.

Whether this is your setup or not, like the other user said Co2 poisoning IS quite common. I added an air stone with the Co2 setup and fish are doing great. I would advise doing the same. I wouldn't mess around with adjusting light times or worrying about slight ph changes, I would add an air supply asap.

I wont say what famous discus person gave me this advice, but I thought about it and agree...
"Plants are cheep compaired to our precious discus. Keep the fish happy, if you have to, buy new plants"

If Co2 is a problem with my fish again...it's gone.

[colinlp]

Interesting!
I've backed off on the CO2 and adjusted the spraybars so they are agitating the surface. The aim is to cut out the CO2 altogether, I have a new tank on order and that will be no CO2 so I'm reducing it slowly to let them acclimatise.

[ExReefer]

It happened to me too. I thought my discus were suffering from gill flukes because of the heavy breathing. Turns out I was poisoning them with CO2. It took me a little while to figure this one out because I never changed my CO2 bubble rate. That ended up being the problem.

The problem originated when I added a homemade CO2 reactor to my external filter and removed a bunch of plant mass. I learned that the reactor was extremely efficient and the reduction in plant mass slowed down CO2 consumption. Those two things caused more CO2 remain in the water and ended up poisoning my discus. The largest discus showed the most stress, but eventually my cardinals were gasping. That’s when it finally hit me. I was lucky my discus survived and now my bubble rate is a fraction of what it once was.

I have no worries now. I started over with a very conservative bubble rate and slowly increased it until my drop checker turned green. My tank has enough CO2 now and the fish are doing great.

Many times the solution is very simple.

[mjs020294]

Not really sure why people use CO2 so frequently. Get plants that are suited toyour conditions, not the other way around. We have a planted tank and everything grows just fine without CO2.