Hiding and Freaking out

[espitzer]

Hi. I read the useful info in the following thread regarding skittish discus, but I am still not sure what to do. http://forum.simplydiscus.com//index...;threadid=7914

I have 9 2-3 inch discus in a 55 gallon tank. The water parameters are the following:

pH=7.6-7.8
TDS=175
KH=3
GH=3
Ammoni=0
Nitrite=0


I use R/O water and add back some filtered well water and do 50% water changes 4-5 times/week.

I feed CBW, Hikari frozen Bloodworms, and Ocean Nutrition I and II flakes, feeding them between 5-6 times/day.

I have 3 sides of the tank covered.

I've had them for about 5 weeks now and they were not skittish at all when I first got them. About a week and a half ago I lifted something close to the tank and it freaked them out. Now any time I go near the tank, 1 or 2 hide and the rest follow. They then start flying around the tank, trying to jump out or just running into things.

It is getting very frustrating!!!!!!

The strange thing is, I have another 55 gallon tank, also with 9 discus of about the same size, and I do everything the same with them and they only hide when I do the water changes. But they come back out right away and never freak out when I get near the tank.

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

[jeep]

Hi,

You list ammonia and nitrite but not nitrate. Have you checked for nitrates? What is the temp?

Whenever mine get skittish the first thing I do is to raise the temp to around 88 and add 1 TBS salt per 10 gallons. This helps most of the time.

Is there anything creating a vibration near the tank? Slight sounds to us can be deafening to fish.

Stray electrical current in the water?

[ronrca]

Stray electrical current in the water?

He, he! Lets say equipment failure instead! Check your heater.

I have had discus scared because of bumping into the tank by accident or dropping something in the tank. It takes them a while to relax again. I make sure that when I am feeding the discus actually associate me with food. I also have my hands in the tank everyday to wipe it down. Usually takes a couple of days until the discus realize Im not out to get them.

I have scared them also once and they got skittish. I fell towards the tank and stopped right before the glass.
What worked in that case was that as I was wearing a white T-Shirt as it happened and I did not wear one the next few days as I was doing my feeding and w/c. After a week they were just fine and trusted me again.
Well I have the food ;D
Could be something as simple as that or what was already suggested before.

Ronald

[keith_cny]

Double check the Ph of the well water you are adding during wc's. I was having a similar problem. Fish were skittish and then started acting stressed. Found my tap water was 6.5. Tank is 7.6. Started aging water and all fine now.

Keith

[espitzer]

Thanks to all who have been responding. To answer your questions:

I age my R/O-well water mix for 3-4 days with heavy aeration. The pH of the aged water is about 7.8-8. The pH in the tank is more like 7.6 at this point, which may be slight problem.

I changed out the heater today, to make sure there was no stray current problem. So, I'll see how that works.

I checked the Nitrate reading and it is between 5-10 ppm. The tank temp is 86. I put in 1 TBS of salt/10 gallons today.

No vibrations around the tank that I can tell.

Seems to be one guy that runs away and the rest follow his/her lead.

Hopefully one of the above things will help. I'll let you know

Thanks again for the suggestion/support.

Eric

[Carol_Roberts]

Take the jumpy leader out and put him in the calm tank. sometimes all it takes is one skittish discus to panic the whole bunch.