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Discus Fry Dying

Greengirl

Members
My discus fry are about 2 months old and one by one every few days a fry dies. Water changes are every other day 45%. Parameters always test within nominal range, ph at 6.8 or a little lower, and temps are kept at 84.

Does anyone have ideas why mine are very slowing dropping off?
 

Rasta Fish

Members
Try separating them so they all don’t die off on you
Don’t mess with water that often ( this work for me before )
Do they have covering like some drift wood?
Are they huddling together or lying on bottom of tank?
Try to treating them with general cure
Are they feeding?
What are you feeding them
Any abnormal behavior ?
 

Becca

Members
Are they picking on each other? They may have reached an age where the ones with weaker constitutions are getting picked on by stronger, more outgoing fish.

Remember, in the wild, only a small portion of these fish will make it. Even adult discus will commonly find a weaker fish and pick on it until it dies, then they start going after the next weaker fish, etc. It's one of the downsides of discus.
 

Frank Cowherd

Global Moderators
Staff member
Velvet is a possibility. It is hard to see. It appears as a very slightly cloudy covering of the fish. But usually it just keeps getting worse in fry. SO it may not be velvet if deaths do not keep increasing.

Salt is the main cure. Though there are lots of remedies. All of the ich cures work on velvet too. But it takes over two weeks because the cysts can live through the treatment and then hatch.
 

Localzoo

Board of Directors
Less water changes?? Seems like a lot.
What size tank how many fry? A good established tank with plants and driftwood offer some natural paramecia/foods and shelter from being stressed and other discus.
Chlorine if the water isn't treated properly.
Are they all getting food? The slower to eat might be missing out....


Sent from my iPhone using MonsterAquariaNetwork app
 

neut

Members
Symptoms leading up to death? Anything abnormal that's visible on them and if so can you take photos?
 

Greengirl

Members
Do they have covering like some drift wood? -THEY HAVE PLANTS, BUT NOT MUCH ELSE. I WAS TOLD THE LESS IN THE TANK THE BETTER.
Are they huddling together or lying on bottom of tank? THEY SWIM ALL OVER THE PLACE. THEY NEVER LOOK LIKE THEY ARE SICK. THEY HAVE NICE FAT BELLIES AND EAT WELL.
Try to treating them with general cure. I WILL
Are they feeding? THEY EAT DECAPSULATTED BBS, AND OTHER FRY FOODS
What are you feeding them
Any abnormal behavior ? NO, NONE. THEY ACT LIKE ANY OTHER YOUNG FRY.

They have no visual sypmtoms, that is why this is so hard to figure out. I have gotten conflicting info that they need daily water changes, you say less water changes. I will try to go a few days to a week without a water change, but I only have 11 fry left. Its so sad. Some are larger than the others, but big ones have dies as well as small runty ones too.
 

Rasta Fish

Members
Interesting ....ummm..I would def try the general cure, as long as they are all feeding i would just try the treatment and not so much water changes as you want to keep them with little environmental changes for a while see how they bounce back

It sucks! I feel your pain, I lost some awhile back but the rest bounce back and are doing great now
 

YSS

Members
How many fish in a what size tank? Generally, less water changes are bad for the fish. Most will say 45% water change every other day is not enough to raise discus fry. I would not start medicating the tank unless you confirm you have a disease in the tank.
 

Greengirl

Members
I have added a general cure to the tank and all the discus actually look a lot better. I thought they were acting normal before, but now they are acting a lot more energetic. I have not done a water change since adding the meds of course, but i think you all may be correct.

These discus fry are meant to be strong and hardy on local tap water, so maybe as such they were more hurt by frequent water changes than I would expect of normal discus. These guys wont be normal.

And mom and dad have another batch of fry eating off their bodies now. I am so happy. I can't wait to sell them all to you guys in another month.
 

neut

Members
Glad they're doing better. I (very successfully) kept discus for years and my observation is discus care is ultimately very subjective. What or what not to feed, plants or no, substrate or bare bottom, size and frequency of water changes, water conditions, compatible tankmates, preventive medication or no, the list goes on of debates over keeping discus. So, I hope you don't mind a few comments on water changes, as far as why you might get different recommendations. Not at all implying you don't know what you're doing, it's just my take on it.

Lot of people think you absolutely must do it this or that way, but the reality is there are different approaches and more than one way works. Water care with discus comes down to one general principle, which is they do best in very clean water with low nitrates and other organics. How you achieve that is where there is no single absolute rule you must follow. Bare tank, feed with beef heart, heavy feeding, and/or generally heavy to excessive protein levels and, yeah, you should probably do daily heavy water changes. Larger tank, biologically balanced (between substrate, periphyton on driftwood or other surfaces, plants, nutrients, etc.), more moderate feeding and protein levels, and other factors can mean healthy discus with fewer water changes. The result is you'll get varying recommendations and there are too many variables for there to be a single cosmic rule everyone must follow, just different philosophies and approaches and it can depend where you learned your discus care (which book, which forum) what you think is the 'right' way to do it.

Not going to write a book here or delve into all my personal philosophy on discus keeping, but here's one basic fact-- the approach of some people feeding them is unbalanced and can increase the need for water changes, which is basically that they overfeed and especially overestimate their need for and overfeed protein. Study finds discus fry grow fastest up to 50% protein levels, above which they grow slower. Growth difference between 45-50% is small. This is comparable with other omnivorous/carnivorous species; for example it's a little lower than some trout species. But some people go overboard on their protein requirements. The connection to water changes is excess protein means poorer assimilation and ultimately excess nitrogen waste, therefore more water changes needed.

I'm not at all saying everyone who does a lot of water changes is feeding wrong, etc. What I'm saying is the balance between feeding, protein levels, source of protein, tank ecology (including everything about the tank, size, filtration, plants, algae and periphyton, etc.) ultimately affects water quality and what you actually need in the way of water changes. So for one type of tank or approach you might really need daily, large water changes, but it's not some cosmic law that applies to all discus tanks or all discus growout tanks.
 

neut

Members
oops... meant to include this link to the protein requirement study I based my protein level comments on.

hmm... when I copy and use the pdf link here I keep getting sent to the abstract... so if you want the pdf article, not just the abstract, use the second link on the search results here.
 
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Greengirl

Members
Thanks so much for all the info Neut. I have changed a lot of how I used to take care of my fry and I think I have come up with the right combo of feed and water changes. As you said, it is different for everyone.

My pair had another spawn, about 30 fry instead of 75 like their first one, but only about five of these new fry are runts. I have just removed them from mom and dad after three weeks. They already look shaped out and better than the first batch. I am a fan of parent raising, and didn't start supplementing the food with bbs and decapsulated bbs until three days ago. Then I removed them and started feeding bbs which they now eat with gusto. Water changes will be less frequent, and I have removed activated carbon and now go for a prefilter. The ten remaining older fry vary in size so much that I have moved them in with the new fry. Some of the old fry have not grown at all but are definitely not runts.

I feed my juvies a mix of mixed flake food of protein and veggies, and then give beef heart once or twice a week. Water changes on the large tanks are weekly. The large discus I have that are not breeders get flake, beef heart, or blood worms. The breeding pair will only eat beef heart, they will not eat anything else.
 

zackcrack00

Members
I was recently reading an article about angelfish fry. A study was once done on decapped BBS; It showed it can harm the digestion system fry. Could this be be with similar cichlids such as discus? I'd hatch some BBS and feed that. You can also buy frozen BBS, I haven't tried this but I hear it works fairly well.
 

neut

Members
I did something similar, the longer I had discus, the more I found some of what I read as rules back then weren't necessary. More recent research about wild discus shows some of the stereotypes are not always true. For example, their wild habitat can reach lower temperatures, also higher ph-- mainly brown (or red) and blue types, than a lot of people think.

Links below to interesting articles about discus parent's mucus. Some things of interest imo are in early days fry digestive enzymes are still in development, mucus of parent discus have special protein profile, mucus contains antioxidant and antimicrobial properties.

http://www.discusnews.com/article/cat-01/discus_mucus.shtml

http://www.practicalfishkeeping.co.uk/content.php?sid=785

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16385477
 
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Greengirl

Members
These articles are amazing!! I knew the mucus was important, but now I am more glad than ever I left the fry with mom and dad so long to eat it. Another member told me I should have removed the fry from the parents after one week, but I left them for three weeks.

And Zack, where did you read that decaps bbs is bad? I would love to read about that too since that is what I have been feeding the discus fry as well. They gobble it up and get nice fat bellies. But if it is bad I need another dry option to supplement live.
 

neut

Members
These articles are amazing!! I knew the mucus was important, but now I am more glad than ever I left the fry with mom and dad so long to eat it. Another member told me I should have removed the fry from the parents after one week, but I left them for three weeks.
Some people in the hobby have funny ideas imo, some of it's just handed down wisdom from wherever they got it, so not criticizing whoever said that and over the years I've had to unlearn some things myself when I've found out some conventional hobbyist wisdom isn't always especially scientific.

I know some people worry about discus fry picking too much off parents slime coat, but I like to raise fry (of whatever species) with substrate, driftwood, etc., which gives them algae and biofilm (and the tiny critters they host) to graze from, besides whatever you're feeding them-- or parents slime coat in the case of discus. Three weeks seems pretty reasonable considering the information in the articles. I preferred leaving them with parents a while as a more natural approach. The way some people raise discus is pretty sterile and artificial to my way of thinking, but since there's more than one way to do it, if it works for them they can knock themselves out. :)
 

neut

Members
Interesting article. Since I never bothered with decap bbs for fry of any species, I never really thought about it or looked into it. My fry of whatever species get crushed up freeze dried brine shrimp (as long as it's dry enough, you can make it as fine as you want it, down to powder if you like), crushed up flake, small NLS (grow or small fish formulas), all depending on size (or species). They also get a supply of algae/biofilm to graze from, something just about any fry I've ever seen will take advantage of if it's there.
 
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