Discus Beginner needing some advice please

[Tramac]

DISEASE QUESTIONNAIRE


Problem

1. Please explain the problems with your fish/when and how they started:
Hello Everyone, first of all I have noticed for the past week my Red Melon has been very lethargic and quiet. Comes to eat only once in a while and even then looks to pick at the food but not really eat. The poo has been varied from dark to stringy and clear. I noticed a shaking of the fins and also clamping. Does not appear overally thin though and at times seems somewhat aggressive and territorial.

Then this morning I noticed my smallest Discus being my Blue Turquoise was very very quiet and did not seem all that interested to come to the front of the tank or eat. Very unusual for this fish as its very social.

Now I have done just about everything wrong that you can do as a beginner and introduced two new fish into the aquarium last week without a quarantine. I have a spare 160 litre tank which I will set up now for this very thing as well as a sick tank. Both these fish seem to have acclimatised well but I understand I could have wiped out my whole tank.


2. Symptoms: I have not noticed a major difference in colour of the Red Melon but my Blue Diamond seems darker, not eating, clamped fins, flashing, darting, clamped gills, white/yellow/green poop, hiding, dark gills and quick breathing





3. What medications/ treatments that you have already tried and results. Include dosages and duration of treatment.
I have done two water changes this week with the latest being today, would have been at least a 40% change. I have used Stress Zyme and Ammo Lock but have not medicated with anything else until I get some advice.





Tank/Water

4. Tank size and age, number and size of fish.
Tank is a Jewel Vision 260 which I have owned for approximately 12 months.
I have 8 discus in total with all but one being very juvenile,
Clean up crew include ;-
5 x Clown Loach
5 x Cory Cats
2 x Whiptail Cats
2 x Peppermint Bristlenose

As well as 10 x Cardinal Tetras, 2 x German Rams and 3 x Rummynose



5. Water change regime/ how long has tank been running/ bare bottom or gravel/ do you age your water?
I have a gravel botton as it is a planted tank, the tank has been running for at least 7 months, was cycled for 2-3 months before any fish went in.
I don't age my water.



6 Parameters and water source;

- temp: 28.7-30 Degrees C

- ph: 6-6.5

- ammonia reading: 0.00-0.25

- nitrite reading: 0

- nitrate reading: 12

- well water ____

- municipal water ____

GH: 7-8
KH: 3-4

7. Any new fish/plants added recently
As listed the new Eruption and Red Dragon but the Red Melon had seemed flat before this

I will also add that the tank does not have the internal filter and has been replaced with a Ehiem 2217 and also has a Ehiem 200 pump with two air stones. Ehiem 200Watt heater.

I am devastated that I have doe something wrong and am willing to try anything to make the best possible environment for my fish.

I have to get ready for work but will add pics and a short video of the fish when I can,.

Kind regards

Tracy

[Tramac]

OK ran in to the problem of not enough posts to link the pics so I anyone wants to see them please let me know or I will post as soon as I have the access

[Second Hand Pat]

Tracy, post in this thread until you reach the amount of posts you need.
Pat

[Tramac]

Thanks Pat, I have been posting in the pics section as well to up the posts.

[Tramac]

Will dead set give myself an upper cut if I have hurt these fish.

[Tramac]

Watching them now and they all seem a tad slow and lethargic all except my Eruption and Red Rose.

[Tramac]

Right will try this again....

Going to be late for work but oh well.

Red Melon
http://i187.photobucket.com/albums/x296/Sxystaff/IMG_2610.jpg
http://i187.photobucket.com/albums/x296/Sxystaff/IMG_2604.jpg

Eruption
http://i187.photobucket.com/albums/x296/Sxystaff/IMG_2588.jpg
http://i187.photobucket.com/albums/x296/Sxystaff/IMG_2611.jpg

Yellow Diamond
http://i187.photobucket.com/albums/x296/Sxystaff/IMG_2608.jpg
& Blue Turquoise
http://i187.photobucket.com/albums/x296/Sxystaff/IMG_2597.jpg

Red Dragon
http://i187.photobucket.com/albums/x296/Sxystaff/IMG_2593.jpg
http://i187.photobucket.com/albums/x296/Sxystaff/IMG_2592.jpg

Red Rose & Golden Yellow
http://i187.photobucket.com/albums/x296/Sxystaff/IMG_2607.jpg
http://i187.photobucket.com/albums/x296/Sxystaff/IMG_2606.jpg

Red Rose & Blue Diamond
http://i187.photobucket.com/albums/x296/Sxystaff/IMG_2601.jpg

Bit of a group shot
http://i187.photobucket.com/albums/x296/Sxystaff/IMG_2620.jpg

Video is still loading

[Eddie]

Now I have done just about everything wrong that you can do as a beginner and introduced two new fish into the aquarium last week without a quarantine. I have a spare 160 litre tank which I will set up now for this very thing as well as a sick tank. Both these fish seem to have acclimatised well but I understand I could have wiped out my whole tank.


I am devastated that I have doe something wrong and am willing to try anything to make the best possible environment for my fish.

Sorry to hear of the problems, but it usually turns out this way. If you needed to medicate, trying to fix the issue in your main tank is gonna be difficult. There are so many variables to take into account. And with no definitive diagnosis, its guess work at this point. From the pictures, a few of the fish look thin or stunted. This is an indication of poor care, probably prior to you having them. I'm gonna with a possible internal issue but still, nothing concrete, givin the symptoms. One thing you may want to do, is start aging your water. People who do not age water, always end up causing more problems because they jump to changing more water and with the difference in parameters, it stresses the fish.

[Tramac]

Thank you for the reply Eddie

As of this morning there is no change in the Red Melon, still not eating and is keeping to itself.
My Blue Diamond also seemed a bit flat however came over and had a feed.

The water in the tank has gone cloudy which I am not sure why. I am about to do another water change and see how I go.

Might add that I noticed the Melon's poo had gone back to a brown colour yesterday afternoon however noticed clear poo in the tank again today.

With my water changes I don't age the water but do use RO water with a Discus buffer and Prime. The GH and KH that come out of my RO water is very much the same as what is in the tank and the main variable is the GH is slightly lower.

I work shift work and am in the middle of all night shifts at the moment but as soon as I have a day off I will clean out the other tank, make it bare bottom and move the Red Melon and possibly the Blue Diamond and medicate there if it comes to that.

Again any advice would be great.

[DiscusDrew]

May I ask why your choosing to use an RO system mixed with tap and buffered? Especially raising juvies are you sure this is necessary? Im only asking Im not saying its wrong or right because I dont know whats coming out of your faucet. :)

[Tramac]

Hi Drew and thanks for the reply. I'm buffering the RO, there is nothing straight out of my tap being used, PH of my tap water is into the high 7's/8
Might have looked confusing as I did mention tap. My RO water still has a rather high PH and is also a litter harder than I would like to use hence why I use a buffer.
I also boil some of the RO water and add it to the bucket to bring the new water to the correct temp before adding it into the tank.
If I am over doing it or doing something really wrong please tell me as I really am trying my best for these fish.

[Tramac]

Just to add did another water change today about 20%
Red Melon still has clear poo but was being much more social
and was looking for food.

[Lt shinysides]

Hi
If you have the facility to put some fresh water into a water butt or barrel to age your water this would be beneficial also pop an air stone in there. The water will then stabilise over night. Maybe using your fresh water straight away is giving different results thus stressing your fish!! I personally use HMA water which is aged over night
PS you could put a heater in the barrel also an the water would be close or same temp as your tank.
Lee

[DiscusDrew]

Well Im not necessarily saying you should or should not use an RO system but I will say this. My water is very hard with a general hardness of about 9 grains per gallon, and a Ph of 8.2 after aging. My fish are very happy with this water because it is CONSISTENT because of the fact that it is aged with airation and a heater. I think consistency you will find is more important than the actual values of your water perameters and using RO water period can produce a less stable Ph, a buffer will help that but then you are also adding chemicals to the water and ultimately will probably get more variation than what you would just allowing the discus to conform to your normal water conditions. Starting out this hobby I remember everybody (LFS and mostly people that had no clue) saying that discus NEED acidic water and discus NEED soft water.... With the amount of domestic breeding and such I really dont feel this to be true and I think most would agree, at least not with domestic discus.

[Tramac]

Hello everyone and thank you for your replies.

My Red Melon is still alive and has tried to eat some food over the past few days.

I am now however fighting with an Ammonia Spike in my tank.

I was using the Seachem Ammonia Checker that stays in your tank as well as testing the ammonia manually every other day. I did think it strange I was getting some low readings when the checker was saying there was nothing wrong. Well I tested it yesterday and I almost fainted, really really green test result. Did a 50% water change straight away and used Ammo Lock as well. Have done another 50% change this morning and will test again this afternoon and if necessary do another water change.

I have taken your advice Drew and stopped using the RO water and am now just using my tap water with the Prime as well as some buffer, I don't want to change their PH to radically so I will monitor it.

I think I am killing them with Kindness to be honest, I had thought with Juveniles small feeds multiple times a day was the way to go and also trying to encourage the Red Melon to eat.

I had a **** **** night at work and ended up doing an 18.5 hours shift so was unable to do a water change on Saturday which may have contributed to the Ammonia spike.

I have also bought myself a 60lt drum to store some water over night, just need to organise a air stone and away she goes.

If there is anything else I could be doing to assist please let me know.

[Tramac]

I thought I should probably add that I tested the Nitrate and Nitrite when I noticed the Ammonia was so high and both of those tests were perfect.
I have a very low PH (testing Yellow with the API test kit)
Have gone and had a read of some posts in the Water section and will order a Seachem Ammonia test kit as I do use Prime in my tank.

[Tramac]

Well I now have a Bacteria Bloom in my tank with really cloudy water. The healthy Discus seem unaffected by it and I am maintaining the daily WC .

All levels are still good except for the Ammonia which has gone even higher. Again thinking that might be because of the Prime

[DiscusDrew]

Prime will read a false positive on chloramines, so if theres no nitrite spike idk how much I would worry about it if its an established tank. That said, for now, at least double and possibly triple the amount of prime you are using, this will not hurt the fish at all and with your large and frequent water change schedule it will allow the bio-filter to recover and get any potentially harmful chemicals back where they should be. As far as the cloudiness goes, are you aging and airating your water yet my friend? Let me know and we can go from there. HTH

[Tramac]

Hi Drew
Have my 60lt barrel all ready just waiting till pay day to grab a new pump and airstone.
Have stop using the RO water and also backed off the Discus Buffer.

The cloudy water literally came over night. Was crystal clear the night before and on the morning looked like thick fog. There also seems be a haze on the top of the water and also when I do a water change there looks to be a haze also on the glass.

Testing water daily and the Nitrate is 10, Nitrite 0, PH 6, Temp 29-30

[Pilchard]

Howdy,

I'm in Newcastle. Good to see another ozzy here.

I have only had my fish for a week or so but several, 5 I know of, discus keepers as well as myself are all just using tap water. I have been heating and aging but most of the other local keepers I have talked to do not. I know our water up here is a little softer than yours and our quality is possibly better but I know of atleast 1 bloke spawning his without buffers, RO or any other fussing about. We are now pumping our water down to you guys so you may find the quality improves as we send more and more your way.

After keeping fish for so many years I have come to the conclusion consistency in ph/kh is the key to success. If a species can be kept and spawned without playing with their water all the better.

Our ph is usually 7.4 - 7.6

[strawberryblonde]

Hi Tramac,

I can see from your posts that you're doing your best to provide good care for your discus, even though you started off on the wrong foot. So, I'm going to give you as many basic care instructions as I can think of (sorry, it's early morning here and I don't think well on less than 3 cups of coffee). Many of them may be things that you already know so bear with me, ok?

1) Discus require approximately 10 gallons/37 litres per adult discus. For your tank you will be able to house about 7 - 8 discus when full grown. This does not include any other fish in the tank. They will contribute to the stocking/overstocking of the tank since they also produce waste products which lower the quality of the water. You have, I believe, 29 other fish in the tank? That's a lot of waste being produced every day. If it was me, I'd consider removing all but the cory's for now. They could go in the spare tank that you purchased until you've worked out the water quality issues in your main tank.

2) QT - You missed the window on quarantining the 2 new fish, so there's not much point in separating them now. Use that tank to get the excess poop producers out of your main tank instead.

3) Feedings - For juveniles (under 3") you will need to feed several times per day with a variety of foods, but it's important to never feed "high polluting" foods if you can't do a water change afterwards in order to remove excess food. Beefheart is one of those polluting type foods. Try to only feed the messy foods once per day, and feed about 1 hour before your planned water change. Other than that, offer flake foods, pellet foods and freeze dried blackworms as the main diet for the rest of the day. 6 feedings a day is plenty, and some even reduce it to 4 feedings a day by increasing the amount fed each time.

4) Water Changes - I can't stress this one enough. You need to be doing LARGE daily water changes. You've got a crap load (pun intended) of fish in that tank and they are producing prodigious amounts of waste each and every day. Once they are large sub-adults (4") and adults, you can scale back the feedings and will probably be able to reduce the size of the water changes, but since the tank is going to be at max capacity, you'll never be able to get away with once or twice a week water changes of 40%.

5) Mini-cycle - Even though you cycled your tank a few months ago, the addition of large numbers, or even small numbers of large fish (even a juvie discus is considered a large fish at over 2") will put your filter through a mini-cycle as it tries to catch up to the increased bio-load. I think that's what you're experiencing now. In order to get your fish through it safely, increase the amount of water that you're changing each day. If you anticipate NOT being able to do a water change, don't feed them that day. Just leave the lights off, toss in a few flakes and then leave them alone. They won't starve overnight, and the water will stay much cleaner if they don't get fed that day.

6) The gravel and background - Be very sure to clean it thoroughly! I was utterly shocked at how much crud was in my gravel when I removed it from my tank. I was doing 2 water changes per day (60 - 80% each time) and vacuuming the gravel with each WC and there STILL was a ton of icky, disgusting crud in the gravel....ewwwww. That crud breaks down and pollutes the water column, reducing water quality. Sooooo, be sure to vacuum thoroughly every time you WC!. The background you have is gorgeous, but it also can easily hide crud, even if it's been siliconed in place. Check it carefully with a flashlight to be sure that you don't have food sneaking around corners, over the top (and then behind the background), etc.

7) The glass and background - Discus build up and shed a lot of slime every day. I dunno why, but they do! LOL The slime is full of protein and other goodies, and in that nice warm water it can harbor and feed a lot of bacteria and protozoans. For that reason it's important to clean the slime off the walls and background on a regular basis. I don't wipe mine down at each WC, but I do wipe it down every other day. For me, it's easiest to just wipe and scrub before I start the WC, and then I do an 80% WC in order to suck that stuff out of there. Others do the wipedown once the water is out of the tank. Do it whichever way works best for you.

8) The Filter - Can't stress this one enough. Filters build up a LOT of crud very quickly thanks to the heavy feeding/pooping routines of growing discus! If you don't already have a pre-filter sponge on your filter, buy one (they're cheap) pronto. The pre-filter sponge can be rinsed out in your sink at every water change and will prevent a lot of the nasties from ever getting into your filter where they rot away. The filter will need to be cleaned at least once a week with your fish load. Just fill a bucket with tank water and then rinse out all the bio-media in the bucket. Be sure to wipe the inside of the filter and don't neglect the impeller....don't want reduced water flow because of a clogged impeller.

9) Plants - They are going to take a beating in your tank because of the constant water changes and stirring up of the gravel, so you might end up removing a lot of them before you're done. I had to pull mine out after trying valiantly to keep them healthy for the first 3 months. I put them in another tank with my boring fish (yep, I used to love those fish but not after I got my discus!) and they are thriving with once a week water changes.

Ok, I think that's everything for now. So long as you are doing the water changes and paying attention to hidden crud build-up, your fish should be fine. Keep an eye out for illnesses since the new discus weren't quarantined, but beyond that, feed well and change water. Oh and change some more water. And when you aren't sure what to do - do a water change. =)

[Tramac]

Thanks so much Toni, very very informative post and although most I have heard before, however, I will have my first coffee for the day have a really good read bit by bit and let it all sink in before I go do my daily water change :)

I am still doing a 50% water change daily and did give the media in the filter a rinse two days ago using water from the tank which is what I suspected started my Bacteria Bloom. I am thinking of going out and buying another filter just to help with the waste.

I did think there was too much in the tank but was told it was not over stocked but to not put anything else in there. I may very well remove the Cardinals and take them back to where I got them. Cheap enough fish and that would be 10 gone from the tank. Other than my Rams and the 3 Rummynose the rest are all clean up crew which I would rather have in there than the Cardinals or Rummynose (Will remove IF I can catch them).

I feed a pretty big variety of foods so I am pleased that I am doing something right lol I feed Ocean Nutrition Discus Flake, Prime Reef Flake and also have their Discus Pellet. On top of that they also get Ocean Nutrition frozen blood worms and tropical quintet which is a mixture of frozen foods, frozen Beef Heart and freeze dried black worm. I will up their feeding again as I had backed off due to the ammonia spike in the tank. I bought an Automatic feeding for when I am at work and plan on that going off twice while I am not home.

Must say other than the cloudy water and with the exception of my Red Melon and Blue Turq(Smallest fish in the tank) Everyone is happy and lively this morning to the point you would think they like the cloudy water lol

I think something I need to get stuck in my head which I have learnt from this forum is my Discus DONT need that low PH that I have had drummed into me. I have stopped using the Discus Buffer and am slowly raising their PH to what comes out of my tap so they have some normality to their water. I will keep a close eye on them though and can always re introduce some buffer if they look to be struggling.

Thanks again Toni for the post, is just brilliant.


Hi Pilchard, so nice to see another Aussie on here :) how are those gorgeous fish coming along?