discus all huddle together in left front top corner

hi all!

As most of you know I spend most of my time away from home with wife looking after my discus!

Since yesterday they are all huddling in close quaters in the top front left corner!as if they are waiting for food,but just much closer toe each other!
When they were fed,all of them chowed well and then went back to corner!

As it is difficult to give you to much information,as I will only be at home in a weeks time,and wife cant really say if there is excess slime and if they are breathing heavily!

Last water change 7 days ago,water change due this afternoon!

Had a bit of a Ph crash from 6.5 to 4.7 since previous waterchange,and no I do not use RO!only used aged water,use seachem prime,and heat water up before put into tank.have a jojo outside with 2 x 300w heaters!

Temp of tank is 29 to 30C

cant give amonia reading,as i sit out here,and wife does not nou how to test it!

tank been running for more than a year!most of fish in there for 5months or longer!
Last fish added was 5 juvi discus about 3 weeks ago,that was in a seperate tank for almost 2 months with no problem!

Nothing else have changed,they get good variaty diet!healthy,grow well and eat like piggs!

I feel a bit out of my comfort zone being out at sea and knowing my discus is acting weird!

Hope someone can maybe tell what could be wrong!

Thanks

 

@jabula 7749 - Maybe one of the discus members in your area could go and take a look for you? I'm sure there is someone here who is willing to help.

 

i think your first problem area to look at would be water quality. the little i know about discus is that they require the best quality water possible, and 7 days intervals between water changes is too long, in fact you can see the poo laying on the bottom of the tank and with discus that is a no no, poo and excess food need to be vacuumed up immediately.

is that sponge filter the only one you have running in the tank? if so it is probably inadequate as these guys would require a sump or cannister filter as well as an internal power filter.

the ph crash is also very very bad for discus.

perhaps @Marco could give some advice here as well?

 

one canister filter,one build in internal fitler with plenty of ceramic rings and 500gm of purigen and two spunge filters!
There a couple of left over gravel on the tank that might look like poo!
I know the Ph could have something to do with it,so hope @Marco or @Dirk could shed some light!

 

Hi @jabula

Mydummyname is right, the filtration seems inadequate. Thecwater seems to have a hazy look to it also.
This is no disease or anything, its just a water quality issue.

Its hard to see if there is other filtration on the tank, maybe a cannister or hob or something, but from the pic I see only one sponge filter? Not good enough. Big water change needed, and then you need to improve the water quality with added filtration. I see a few have already gone dark. Need to sort it out pronto!

Rgds

Marco

 

Usually when discus are scared of something or feel threatened or under stress, they huddle up together. Now i dont know if i thats an illusion, but is that solid black discus that i see? or are they stressed and turned dark? the big bright ones cannot show stress bars, but the small one toward the bottom of the black ones is showing stress bars...but that could just be normat at the time the pic was taken. IMO the discus look a bit freaked out over something...anything new introduced into their room such as a big dark object? or something new put into their tank?

 

nothing new to tank!
Photo was taken with cellphone so not the best quality photo!that brown is a male,and darkens up when spawning as well,wife says he is not as dark in reality as what photo shows.will do wc today at 50%.
@Marco,dink jy die PH crash kan dit veroorsaak?

 

@jabula

Unless the ph dropped ver suddenly, which would result in them most probably lying flat on the bottom, only a ph of extreme low measuring will upset them. 4.7 theyd still be ok at.

Disco raised a point, they seem afraid, but I stillnthink its down to water quality. I dont like the haziness of the tank. Best advise I can give, do a 50% wc and see if they improve. If not we start looking elsewhere

Rgds

Marco

 

thanks guys!
Will do that wc this afternoon,as my wife is at work!
Will keep you guys up to date!
Never had nitrate ,nitrite or amonia problems!
Hope they dont start now!
Its a 500l tank!
Nothing could scare them,when they are scared,they gather around the spunge filters!
Must be water problems,wish i could check it myself!
Thanks for your help and guick response!
Charles

 

@Marco
that tank ph always drops slowly,normaly only to 5.5,as then its time for my weekly wc again.im sure the ph drop happend slowly

 

@jabula 7749 i think it would be important to do more frequent water changes, minimum twice a week, this would help to take care of excess food that might be laying around also it help prevent toxins from ever reaching any sort of dangerous peak levels, but please let us know how things go and the best of luck to you dude...

 

@Marco and @mydummyname saying same thing change more water. make sure it treated right, with your prime and aged min 24hrs.
hope you get to the bottom of your prob keep us posted
cheers doug

 

hey guys!
After a lot of reading,i think they have gill flukes!
Dont ask how,maybe from angels in one of my other tanks!
All my tanks has their own nets,but somehow it happend.fish breathing quickly,not all of them.excess slime,no fin damage!some of them have slime over gills.so,i started treatment,hope it works!if it does not work ill let you know!did water change this afternoon,and will do wc every day for the next week!ive added salt,and paraguard!

 

If they have gill flukes they will usually only use one gill plate and have one closed, would have to be severe gill flukes for them to go this dark. Could be something else that is stressing them and inturn that is making them an easy target for parasites and diseases once something starts going wrong, it is very quick and easy to spiral out of control and you wipe the tank. Make sure you know what you are treating before you do anything !

 

Please keep us updated. I think gill flukes can only be confirmed under microscope, so u are dosing via symptoms. My experience with paraguard is that well is does nothing but give the water a blue tint...but then again one cant see flukes. They say dose daily till symptoms improve and watch for adverse effects. Given the size of ur tank, its gona cost a lot to medicate. My one discus with suspected flukes still died and for the cost of medicating i could have replaced the fish. Sometimes discus are just funny and get sick for no apparent or obvious reason...perhaps its in specific fish genes or what the fish was exposed to from the breeder.

 

Hi Charles

sorry to hear of your dilemma.

Can you tell us what medication you have used. I would be very hesitant to add any meds if you havent identified the cause of the problem. I believe medicating with the incorrect thing is worse for the fish than the initial problem.

I may be wrong here, but i also believe larger discus are not that prone to gill flukes. Its a problem mainly with young fish, but as I say, i may be wrong.

Regrdas

andrew

ok, i see you say salt and paraguard. Is that the only meds?

 

@pHish_man is right with the flukes fish under 6cms
cheers doug

 

@Jabula

Phish_man is right, this is not a fluke problem. Flukes wont easily cause this in fish these size, unless they have, for some insane reason countless flukes basically suffocating them.
You have done a water change and added salt, as well as Paraguard (which does for parasites what butter does to a burn wound - buggerall!) The paraguard does however help a bit with breathing, so you might see reduced breathing speed.

Tbh, I still think this is no more than a water issue of some sort. Let us know if the water change and salt helped at all. If they improve I'd say you found the problem, ie water.

Rgds

Marco

 

hello guys!
Lot of info,and thanks for it!
What makes it more difficult is the fact that im not at home myself,so I know almost as much as you guys!i dont mind paying for meds,my fish is a couple thousand wort.i read prof thread about flukes in larger fish,so if it aint flukes,there stil something wrong.
Well after the w/c, salt and paraguard,they do swim around the tank a bit more!ill ask my wife again later tonight and tomorrow!normaly I dont do the meds thing,ive never added meds except when i started and bougt discus from lfs with flagel,that i sorted out mith metronidazol,and that was 8 months ago.
the only thing that have changed is that i bought a new 500l jojo where i prepare my water,use to do it in big containers,dont know if there could be something wrong with my jojo,dont think so,as al 4 my other tanks with tetra,angels,rams,rymmynosses,cardinals are still fine!ill keep you guys up to date!thanx

 

one other thing i do diffrent is that i now use prime and safe as a water conditioner for the last 2 weeks.before that I used tetra water conditioner.