Dsicus have been dark and hiding

[Termato]

The first mistake I made was to get discus from an unreliable seller--Live Aquaria. Seriously, not ONE perfectly healthy discus. I know, Discus Hans is right there. I had a lot of credits with them, ok! I've learned my lesson.

Anyways, they shipped me so many sick discus half of them died off. I was able to get refunded after I stated how unacceptable it was to send my sick fish. The survivors has gotten a lot better, with the exception of two discus who have been displaying stripes this whole time and being shy. Over this past weekend, they all seem to get really dark over night and then throughout the day they gain most of their color back. Even the two alpha males you could see weren't coming out as much. They colored up after feeding and towards the end of the day would look MUCH better. They always looked worse in the morning.

I keep coming back to thinking the following things:

• There is not enough oxygen at night (This is a fully planted tank that gets dosed with Excel).
• Their internal infections are starting to surface (But wtf caused them to stress out!?)
• I have no friggen idea why it's still happening.

I just put an air stone in today to try and help. Within about 5 minutes the only discus who was acting very strangely started getting better. He was upside down and then started acting normal and went over to other discus. I didn't see any of the other one breathing hard, though.

150G Moderately Planted Tank, Ammonia: 0, Nitrite: 0, Nitrate 5-10ppm, dGH: 8, Temp: 84F, pH: 7.4
8 Domestic Discus
8 Cardinal Tetras (Will be more)
6 Sterbas Cories
Treated with Excel daily (except today because I saw the discus weren't happy)
Treated with Flourish Comprehensive every other day
LED Light bars Blue and White.
Heavy floaters covering the top

I do water changes every other day on this tank (25%) and weekly 50% water changes. I also have a UV filter running 24/7 on here (SunSun HW 303-B) and another regular canister (SunSun HW 305-B)

I'm going to keep the level of maintenance I'm doing on the tank, if not increase it to daily water changes. What I'm curious about is if I should treat them. I can take a picture or video but it'll be hard to capture their behavior. I'll do my best.

I've treated them with the following so far from previous issues:

• Salt treatment for 5 days
• Two seperate 1 week treatments of Formaldehyde 4.26% (11.52% formalin) and zinc-free chloride salt of malachite green.
• 7 Day treatment of Victoria Green, Nitromersol

I REALLY don't want to treat the whole friggen 150G tank again. That month was expensive in heating that water. Any suggestions?

 

[Becca]

I'll issue this disclaimer - I don't go with the school of thought that dark colors or bars on discus necessarily equate to stress (especially if they're just showing their bars).

In a 150, you need A LOT of surface movement to properly aerate a tank. One problem with canisters is that the output can fall below the water line and not cause enough surface disruption. A few large air stones or a bubble wall in the bottom of the tank (run by a very powerful air pump) can help with this, as can an output that incorporates a vinturi. Plants also use oxygen at night and can pull it out of a tank.

I'd also argue that you are trying too hard, but I am a lazy discus keeper. I refused to keep them for years because I considered them high maintenance. The only way I'd ever seen them kept was being fed several times a day with expensive foods and daily water changes that, if missed, led to poor water conditions. This is how people keep discus when they want to speed grow them. Feeding them to speed grow them can lead to fatty liver problems and other health issues. It's not natural (not that any part of keeping an aquarium really is). Daily water changes can mean that you're altering your water chemistry markedly every day, especially if you're treating with chemicals to try to get to a certain pH, etc. This kind of inconsistency can be rough on fish - if you want to do daily changes, try a smaller amount. Ultimately, everyone I knew who kept discus like this experienced continuous die offs and my friends were always struggling to keep their fish healthy and water conditions correct.

Also, bad discus just aren't as hardy. I have some Discus Hans fish that I got through Batfish Aquatics along with a few that were bred from Hans fish by a fellow club member. All-in-all, we started out with 9 50-cent-piece sized fish. Over the course of 8-9 months, we lost 4 to infighting - one would get starved out by the others who wouldn't let it eat. The population settled at 5 fish with an obvious, but livable, pecking order. They share a heavily planted 150 with black neons, serpae tetras, emperor tetras, gaggles of catfish, boisterous C. reticulatus, some Asellus puffers, and I don't remember how many B. cupido (6 or 7?). The tank is full tap and kept just above 80 degrees. We don't do anything special to the water other than dechlorinate. Once a week it gets a 50% water change and some days we forget to feed the fish. Our discus aren't the biggest ever, but they grow. They do seem to be happy, healthy, and adaptable, unless, of course, you think that those bars mean they're about to drop dead any minute.

 

[Termato]

Great information Becca!

The UV SunSun has a lot of output and has good surface break up but since I have removed my HOB the surface irritation has considerable dropped. That is a great point. It makes a lot of sense considering their reaction to adding the air stone. I just wouldn't want to run the air stone all day because of the C02 in the tank. Maybe I can put it on a timer for night time where it seems to affect them more?

Luckily I age my water and I don't always have to put in chemicals. I just dechlorinate before putting it into the tank as out of the tap is almost perfect for the fish. That is a great point though that there is a point where you can do too much maintenance.

I don't think that the bars mean they are unhealthy but I have correlated them to behaviors of bring stressed. My alpha male only displays them when he's being not so alpha or goes off to hide. The darker body color I've found to be an even greater indicator. I'm only concerned because they were showing these signs when they were dying off (specifically the alpha male, he never shows bars unless he's unhappy). I haven't had any die in a couple of weeks so I've been quite happy about that. I just want to take any measures to help.

I can try switching to only syphoning out debris daily instead of a full water change. That way I can just keep the tank clean but reduce the chance of changing the parameters too much.

I just don't want any of them to die

I'll issue this disclaimer - I don't go with the school of thought that dark colors or bars on discus necessarily equate to stress (especially if they're just showing their bars).

In a 150, you need A LOT of surface movement to properly aerate a tank. One problem with canisters is that the output can fall below the water line and not cause enough surface disruption. A few large air stones or a bubble wall in the bottom of the tank (run by a very powerful air pump) can help with this, as can an output that incorporates a vinturi. Plants also use oxygen at night and can pull it out of a tank.

I'd also argue that you are trying too hard, but I am a lazy discus keeper. I refused to keep them for years because I considered them high maintenance. The only way I'd ever seen them kept was being fed several times a day with expensive foods and daily water changes that, if missed, led to poor water conditions. This is how people keep discus when they want to speed grow them. Feeding them to speed grow them can lead to fatty liver problems and other health issues. It's not natural (not that any part of keeping an aquarium really is). Daily water changes can mean that you're altering your water chemistry markedly every day, especially if you're treating with chemicals to try to get to a certain pH, etc. This kind of inconsistency can be rough on fish - if you want to do daily changes, try a smaller amount. Ultimately, everyone I knew who kept discus like this experienced continuous die offs and my friends were always struggling to keep their fish healthy and water conditions correct.

Also, bad discus just aren't as hardy. I have some Discus Hans fish that I got through Batfish Aquatics along with a few that were bred from Hans fish by a fellow club member. All-in-all, we started out with 9 50-cent-piece sized fish. Over the course of 8-9 months, we lost 4 to infighting - one would get starved out by the others who wouldn't let it eat. The population settled at 5 fish with an obvious, but livable, pecking order. They share a heavily planted 150 with black neons, serpae tetras, emperor tetras, gaggles of catfish, boisterous C. reticulatus, some Asellus puffers, and I don't remember how many B. cupido (6 or 7?). The tank is full tap and kept just above 80 degrees. We don't do anything special to the water other than dechlorinate. Once a week it gets a 50% water change and some days we forget to feed the fish. Our discus aren't the biggest ever, but they grow. They do seem to be happy, healthy, and adaptable, unless, of course, you think that those bars mean they're about to drop dead any minute.

 

[Becca]

Excel is a carbon supplement, not CO2... I don't think running an airstone or bubble wall would cause a problem with it, but I'm no expert on using fertilizers/ supplements. I always intend to use them in my tanks, which are all planted, but never remember.

 

[Termato]

Yea, definitely. That was my fault for misspeaking about Seachem's Excel, it is definitely NOT C02 lol. I found this off of the seachem website which is really useful information:

Q: Will an airstone or surface agitation decrease the effectiveness of Excel as it would decrease the effectiveness of CO2 injection?? What effect would an airstone/agitation have on Excel's effective CO2 levels?

A: An air stone or other surface agitation will not impact the effectiveness of Flourish Excel. Flourish Excel is not CO2, it is simply a readily available source of carbon. This is an intermediate source and more readily available than CO2 and will not interfere with the uptake of CO2 as a carbon source.

http://www.seachem.com/support/FAQs/FlourishExcel.html

Excel has been making my plants grow like I can't feed them enough. Seriously. I love that stuff. I am just very careful using it though.

Air stones will now be placed in that 150G to run for the entire day. That will make me feel better!

 

[Termato]

I just got home and all of them are doing 200% better than this morning. All but two of them were out and looking for food. I'm going to keep a close eye on them over the next few days to notice any changes but I'm hoping that was the problem. I guess the real check will be tomorrow when I get up after leaving the air stone on all night. We'll see...

 

[dhavalsp]

I think you should stick to those water changes for few day...25% is decent...I have always reduced water change after a particular size but the tolerance to reduced WC has been different at a given size every time. so it is pretty much trial and error method.

 

[JLW]

You may want to consider thinning out your floating plants. They can seriously impede oxygen exchange beneath them. Plus, they reduce the amount of light your other plants are receiving.

 

[FishEggs]

Also worth noting is, it is an AIR pump not an oxygen pump. The combination of air includes oxygen and cO2 among other gasses so you are also helping to put more cO2 into the water too. Whether one dissolves into the water faster than the other i dont know.

 

[Becca]

The air pump increases surface disruption if it is powerful and appropriately sized airstones are used.

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[Becca]

You may want to consider thinning out your floating plants. They can seriously impede oxygen exchange beneath them. Plus, they reduce the amount of light your other plants are receiving.

Good point! I failed to catch that.

Sent from my SCH-I435 using MonsterAquariaNetwork App

 

[JLW]

Matt is correct. If the concentration of CO2 in your tank is lower than that of the surrounding air (from plants using it up), aeration will have the result of increasing CO2 concentration in the tank. You will actually see better results in growth with aeration than without. However, if you're adding CO2, you'll drive the CO2 gas off with aeration and have a net loss.

CO2 poisoning for fish is almost impossible, without supplemental CO2 (even then, it's hard). CO2 and O2 do not "compete" for room in the water; you can saturate it with both CO2 and O2. Fish can survive quite well with very high quantities of CO2, provided O2 is also high. There's a limit, of course (the way a fish's gills work, if the CO2 in the water is higher than that of the fish's blood stream, it cannot rid itself of CO2, and it'll eventually be killed). Anyhow, point being -- I wouldn't worry about your CO2 levels much; it's more likely low oxygen.

 

[Termato]

Very interesting information. The pump is small but it's creating a lot of surface agitation where water it hitting my light. I had to move it.

I've been removing floaters every day. They grow faster than I can take them out. Anyone want any floaters?! I'm going to take out more, as advised, and see how that goes.

These discus range from puck sized to palm sized.

Thanks everyone for all the great help so far. I'll let you know if anything changes.

Here is a quick shot of some of them. You can see the big alpha in the front right.

 

[Termato]

Today, when I woke up, not a single one of them was at the top or super dark. Good signs!

I'll check in on them once I get home from work and let you all know.

-----

Also, for internal parasites or bacteria, do you all still treat the entire tank or do you just quarantine that lone fish?

Do you just quarantine a lone fish if it's aggression issue?

How do you determine that usually? I know with external parasites, bacteria, fungus I treat the entire tank. But how do you determine things like worms and internal things.

Thank you all in advanced.

 

[Becca]

JLW is the person to ask about treatment, I think. I tend to deworm the whole tank.

 

[JLW]

I would say that if you see signs of internal parasites in one fish, every single one is infected. By the time you've noticed it, those worms have been shedding eggs into the water regularly, and chances are the other fish have ingested them.

Quarantining for aggression works by removing the nasty guy from the tank, giving the fish a chance to set up a new pecking order. Once he's been gone for a couple of weeks, and everyone has gotten stable again, you can re-add him.

 

[Termato]

Thanks for the great response, JLW! That information is going to go a long way for me (and hopefully others)

 

[JLW]

Also, one of the most important considerations: most anti parasite medications do not work by killing the parasites. They work by allowing the host to successfully shed the parasite, often stunning them and sometimes killing a lot -- but not all -- of them. The parasites are then shed in the fish's feces. Fish are dumb. Fish are really dumb. They eat each other's feces, they eat their own, and they'll pick up a dying parasitic worm and eat it. They get reinfected. Even dead worms may contain viable eggs which will hatch and infect other fish.

As such, you should always treat again 7-10 days after the first treatment. I also like to feed the fish heavily right before treatment. This has two effects. First, fish are reasonably satiated and may not be as eager to reinfect themselves. Secondly... well, never follow me at the bathroom an hour after the all you can eat buffet, eh? The extra "push" helps get rid of the parasites.

It also doesn't hurt to gravel vac shortly after treatment.

 

[dhavalsp]

It also doesn't hurt to gravel vac shortly after treatment.

+1 for that....

 

[Termato]

This is a great point. Having a planted tank is going to make it harder for me to remove those that have fallen into the substrate, but I think I can stay on top of it if I run into it.

I have a school of Cardinal Tetras in one QT and a pair of Apistogramma Agazi DFR in another QT that I will need to treat before being introduced. Your advice will come in handy when I de-worm them before introducing them into the tank.