More problems...

Allright keeping up with my dark trend. Yes I have learned that inexperience x discus x multiple tanks is a nightmare (

Just to give an overall view:

Tank 1 240 litre with sand on one side and a few plants, other side bare bottom and the poo accumulates there allowing me to clean rather easily.
11 corys cleaning up. Had in it 11 Discus (5 on the larger side around 14-15 and 6 x 10-12cm range). 3 external + 1 internal filter (overdoing it to compensate for biomass).

Tank 2 260 litre recently acquired: 1 breeding pair but not huge fish, 5 juveniles in the 6-7 cm range and 2 stunted fish that are smaller (just added 3 babies). bare bottom but put some live plants in a pot and some anubias mounted on a piece of bogwood.

After fighting with my initial ammonia and nitrites and my nitrates around 10-15 (PH always around 7, KH always 2 to 3, and GH always 5 ) both tanks and their inhabitants seemed to be settled and even had my breeding pair spawn. And I was trying to understand why my baby discus were dying in their 54L.

Both tanks getting at least 40 litres of water changed religiously. Fish being fed a lot (they ate anything i gave to them and fed them loads of beef heart)

Friday i come back from work and see one of my big pigeon bloods in tank 1 looking terrible. I immediately start testing the water and get an Ammonia reading off the chart. In panic mode I change 60% of the water but the fish was too far gone and passed soon after.

Saturday all fish looking well, my ammonia and nitrites at zero, nitrates over 40ppm, change 50% water, clean my FX5 and add pure bio media in there (since there are 3 other filters i figure mechanical filtration will be performed by other filters. I cleaned an eheim from tank 2 and set it on tank one as it fits better in the cabinet and i too a chinese external from tank one and moved it to tank 2 after a quick cleanup of the sludge in the bottom. Didnt test tank 2 as all looked well.
Sunday high nitrates on tank 1 ( changed about 200L from 240L tank). And a reading of .25 nitrites on tank 2 (40L changed).

This morning i spot one of my Tefes in tank 1 breathing very slowly and resting against a plant, clamped fins and slightly darker than usual. I had no time so the only measure i took was to increase the heater setting to 32 degrees thinking a lot of bacteria/parasites are eliminated by high temperature. Tonight i come back and he is dead. Another wild Tefe not looking so great and the 3rd Tefe ok but I have a doubt. Test results amonia and nitrite 0 nitrate 40ppm KH 2 GH 6 PH 7
Tank 2 ammonia 0 nitrite .25 nitrate over 40 less than 80ppm

I move my Tefes from tank 1 to a 54 litre tank i had setup for breeding. One is definitely darker than the other one. He is much less lethargic than the one that died but i do not want to get close to that.

So the question is do i need to treat them for something. Could it be that the Tefes are suffering from consequences of that ammonia spike?
So tank 1 tonight is left with 7 discus.

Any advice on treatment for a tefe that looks darker, clamped fins.

Hi,
I just saw all your posts. I would really like to help, but I don't know what to say.
It seems to me that I didn't change as much water in over 10 years of keeping and breeding discus as you did in last few weeks, and I don't remember loosing more than 2-3 fish in ten years!
Also, I test water once a week for pH, for other things once in 15 days, but I know what tests are going to show even before testing...
Sorry for your bad luck, maybe you brought some sick fish to your tanks and now you have problems, I really dont know.
I also think that 31-32 is too high, as you could see at my place I keep mine at 28, some even at 27 and I they are all doing well, eating, breeding etc...
Hope someone will know how to help you.
Keep us posted.
Hope that's the end of your problems.
Good luck.
Thanks
Sina

how old is ur tank

tank 1 is 3 months old and tank 2 3 weeks old. i started all this 3 1/2 months ago.

Thanks Sina, i started knowing nothing. And I am being a victim of my own enthusiasm. You have no problems because you probably started with a cycled tank. In 3 months i have 2 discus tank, one community tank and a nano! I was sold some good fish and some stunted fish and some in between but in any case my battle is getting to the right balance between water quality, feedings and water changes while learning. But if i see a bad nitrite or nitrate reading shouldn't i be changing water?

It does not sound like a lasting problem due to an ammonia spike (the fish would have probably died much earlier and shown some signs if the amount of ammonia was sub-lethal).

Sub-lethal signs of ammonia poisoning include gasping at the surface, tryingf to jump out of the water, sudden darting around (unusually skittish), tattered fins, and redden gills (to name just a few).
There may well, of course, be a state of coma if the level is above lethal dose.

The nitrate levels are rather high for discus......so check for the state of the gills: are there any curling of the gill plates? are the inside of the gills brownish?

But even if the nitrate levels are tolerated by your discus, then the high nitrate levels are also an indicator that conductivity might be too high and that the level of detrimental compounds in the water might be high.

[all of that is assuming your test kits are OK......but if fish are dying then we know something is wrong, so don't even bother worrying about errors in false highs ]

Increasing temperature does not (ie DOES NOT) necessarily rid the tank of parasites and bacteria......indeed increasing temperatures to the type of temperatures tolerated by discus can increase bacterial loading in the tank (and decrease oxygen......thereby increasing the biological oxygen demand if bacteria are increasing !! ).
However, such an increase may serve to increase the fishes immunity to infection.........but that must be matched to water conditions.

ian

id say ur problem is ur tanks age bein honest 2 much too fast for ur tanks to establish

definitely.

first fish friday was gasping and that is how i knew something was wrong. The Tefe was just lethargic, breathing slowly, much less jumping out of the water. Checked its gills they were light pink. The rest of the body didn't show any type of abnormality, but then i don't know how long he was dead in the water. My concern today is the 2 remaining Tefes i moved to a different tank something is obviously not great especially with one of them. Pics to follow. I bought some Protosol from Bart yesterday would that help in any way?

posted a reply with pics and they never showed.

do u know anybody with an established tank that could mind them for u untill ur water is sorted ur readings have been all over the place and discus just wont tolerate that

they don't look good a tall cloudy eyes

sorry to read al the problems your having pal

i think you jumb in the deep end with no swimming ring on ye (

don't no what to say to ye hard fishs to keep happy if your not on top off thing's ian won't put ye wrong an be very careful what ye put in the tank small water chance but make sure the ph an the buffer r in it.....

Thank Eugene the picture is misleading: this fish has a damaged eye and that is the eye you see on the pic. Now i don't see cloudiness on the lighter colour fish. Do you see something I don't?

must be the damged eye id say what way they lookin

igmillichip wrote:

It does not sound like a lasting problem due to an ammonia spike (the fish would have probably died much earlier and shown some signs if the amount of ammonia was sub-lethal).

Sub-lethal signs of ammonia poisoning include gasping at the surface, tryingf to jump out of the water, sudden darting around (unusually skittish), tattered fins, and redden gills (to name just a few).
There may well, of course, be a state of coma if the level is above lethal dose.

The nitrate levels are rather high for discus......so check for the state of the gills: are there any curling of the gill plates? are the inside of the gills brownish?

But even if the nitrate levels are tolerated by your discus, then the high nitrate levels are also an indicator that conductivity might be too high and that the level of detrimental compounds in the water might be high.

[all of that is assuming your test kits are OK......but if fish are dying then we know something is wrong, so don't even bother worrying about errors in false highs ]

Increasing temperature does not (ie DOES NOT) necessarily rid the tank of parasites and bacteria......indeed increasing temperatures to the type of temperatures tolerated by discus can increase bacterial loading in the tank (and decrease oxygen......thereby increasing the biological oxygen demand if bacteria are increasing !! ).
However, such an increase may serve to increase the fishes immunity to infection.........but that must be matched to water conditions.

ian

Ian thanks again for being thorough. That is usually opening a can of worm for me now but it much appreciated
Anyways I want to answer your different points. (I had prepared a huge answer for you on another thread and it never posted..)

1) Ammonia: The one fish that died very fast friday was well in the morning, And when i saw something was wrong that is because he seemed to be gasping and he was at the surface. Other fish were swimming all around the tank as if nothing. On Saturday the Ammonia reading was 0.

2) Nitrates: my nitrates are too high, buts its very recent, and my water changes are daily: how long does it take a concentration of 60-80ppm to kill fish? I have noticed algae as well. Cause is overfeeding ==> I feed them a lot and WAS feeding them loads of beef heart: they go mad for it but what I do not understand is there are no leftovers that I see in the tank... And i syphon poo every night when i change water.. I do not know what conductivity is and what you mean by "detrimental compounds": do you mean other substances in the water?
I will check the gills of the fish today. I haven't noticed anything strange and trust me i watch them a lot (perhaps due to no experience I am not watching for the right indicators). Gills of dead fish were light pink and i didn't see anything strange on him (it is bagged and in the fridge so if you want to perform an autopsy i can drive and take it to you).

3) My test kit is brand new, API for Ammonia, Nitrite, Nitrate, PH, and HIGH PH, i bought separately GH and KH from API as well (all expire in 2018 or some far away date). I have read a lot and seen a few videos on proper testing so except for the occasional struggle to find a match between the tube colour and the chart I am pretty confident.

4) Temperature is now at 32 Celsius and there is aeration via bubbles and via 2 filter spray bars and 1 FX5 nozzle pointing at the surface.

I believe i will get this under control by reducing dirty food and amount of food and changing water. I may also clean the sludge from filters more often for a few days to see if there is a lot accumulating there.

Now, i need to focus on the 2 fish that i separated: If i separate them I guess is to observe them first but also to treat any potential illness. Last night they didn't take any food but no surprising since they were just moved. This morning the darker fish was lighter in colour and looked more like the other one on the pic: threw a couple of pellets but didn't see them take it. Is there anything i should be giving them? What other information could I gather to help get a diagnostic?

update: fish in question looked better last night in my beginner's opinion, but none of the 2 tool any food (not surprised as big change for them to go into small tank).
BUT I found him dead this morning.

The .25 level of nitrites I had in tank 2 for a couple of days is down to zero. Nitrates were 40ppm for tank 1 and between 20 -40ppm for tank 2 => did a 30% water change on both tanks.

Hi Miami,

How are fish doing now, is everything ok?

Thanks

Sina

Discus-Killester wrote:

Hi Miami,

How are fish doing now, is everything ok?

Thanks

Sina

Hi Sina,
Doing much better after my dark trend. Still changing loads of water but doing it much easier with pumps and barrels. Fish are looking well. One of my tanks still tends to be orangy-red on the test for nitrates although i decreased the qty of fish, i change a minimum of 60% water daily.. I guess i feed them too much that is the only explanation I have left. But i really have a hard time no to feed them loads as they are eager to eat everything i throw at them. i have reduced beefheart a lot and use more pellets and frozen brine shrimp and frozen blood worms once.twice a week. What do you feed yours?
Brought in a big blue cobalt from SH today: he got bullied a little bit I hope this will stop soon. But funny enough i put in a breeding cone and my first fish a blue diamond along with a pigeon blood start defending the cone and chasing all the other fish: would i be witnessing a pair being formed?

Hi,

I feed mine all sort of dry food : Tetra Discus, JBL Discus, Tetra Discus Pro, Discus Gran, Flakes, Sera Discus Blue (for blue diamonds), and once a week beefH and bloodworms...

Protecting the cone could be just territorial thing, but you'll know for sure when you see them "kissing" the cone.

Whhat do they have in SH, any good discus, I wasn't in there for a long time.

Thanks

SIna