Sick Discus.

I know the pics are a bit blurred but you can get the just of the white nodules growing on the fish, some of it is starting to get patchy. In the last 48 hours I have had a PH crash of down to 4.0 so i am assuming that is the cause. When i first saw it yesterday I put the temp up to 32C and added salt like you told me last time they got fin rot as that is what it looked like yesterday. I also corrected the PH by adding PH up from the test kit it is now on 6.5. they are still as hungry as always. The last water change was done 4days ago of conditioned water. There has also been a lot of bullying of last in the tank from the 2 Lager fish on the other 4 smaller fish.





I am taking a water sample to the LPS to have all the parameters checked and will post this later.

 

Hi Jason,

pH 4 is not too bad for discus they can handle this for shorter periods of time.

YOU SHOULD NEVER ADD PH UP TO A DISCUS TANK!!!!!!!!

This causes a far to big jump in the pH, and if you change from pH 4 to 6.5 this is a more than 100 fold change in acidity. I actually think that your fishes are showing the results of this pH change as a shock reaction and they are producing slime which is why you are seeing these gray fins and nodules. However, the damage is done and you should not change anything more, PLEASE!!!! Just continue feeding them normally and let us hope that they will be ok.

In future if the pH is too low, I would suggest that you can add some bicarb, depending on the size of your tank, maybe a level teaspoon per 100 litres and this will push up the pH by about 0.5 to 1 unit. Do not do this more than once in 24 hours. Actually you should check the pH whilst doing this, so that you are sure that you are not adding too much, so be careful, but I think that you can do not harm with the level teaspon per 100 litres. You and anyone else that reads this must PLEASE not come to the conclusion that if you add two flat teaspoons of bicarb it will be better than 1 because that will definitely not be the case and you may have the fish going into pH shock because you may change the pH too fast so please do this carefully.

I do not think that any of the other parameters will be wrong in your water, but I am assuming that you have a good mechanical and biological filter on your tank.

Kind regards,

Dirk

 

Thank you Dirk

I feel I need to clarify that the fin rot was showing 3 days ago already before testing the PH yesterday and the PH up was put in 8 hours after the Salt and temp hike. It had got twice as bad by this morning as a result I am sure like you say from the PH Jump. now my prob still is what caused the onset of the rot 96 hour ago.
It’s amazing what a person forgets in a panic, most of the things you mention are things you have told me in the past and on visiting you the last time and you showing me the low PH in your one tank. I was so shocked on how low the PH was yesterday as its the lowest its ever bean and how quickly it dropped was also a eye opener I mean I have never had ph go lower than 5.5 for as long as I have had discus.

I did not get to the LPS today but will be taking that sample in the morning.

Another Q dose PH up do anything to bacteria in a filter with the sudden spike? I was thinking about it after your reply.

On the filtration question I have a 1500L p/hour canister filter as well as 2 polishing filters in the tank one power head driven and the other a boyu air sponge filter.

Kind regards

Jason

 

Hi Jason,

If you say that this started 3 days before then I can assure you that the pH was under 4, under pH 4 is where the fin burn starts. The salt may have increased the pH a little but not much, so the low pH was not good, but that pH jump was what was also not good. What caused the drop is that you are FEEDING your fishes. Protein gets broken down in the fishes to ammonia which they release directly into the water via the gills. The Ammonia, NH3 is then changed to nitrite, NO2, and them to nitrate, NO3 in your filter which is exactly what your filter must do because the ammonia and nitrite are toxic for the fishes. Nitrate in high levels is also not good, but you remove that with water changes. However, can you see that the H, hydrogen from the ammonia gets released into the water and is replaced by oxygen, O, which binds to the nitrogen to give you nitrate, NO3. The hydrogen goes into the water as hydrogen ions, H+, and this caused the pH to drop. If you do not have carbonates in the water which buffers the pH of the water and stops it going down, it will go down. Our water here in the bigger CT area has hardly any carbonates so your pH will drop and bingo, this is what you see!

You say that you are sure that your pH did not drop below 5.5 before, well I can assure you that if it has dropped as low as it now appears to then it has been lower before as well. Although this is an expensive item, this is why I will never ever keep discus without a decent pH meter, but this an expensive item which is not so affordable.

I do not really think that taking the sample to the LPS is going to tell us any more.

I think the bacteria in the filter will be ok and the filtration also sounds ok.

I have recently started experimenting with Microbelift "Discus - Proper water chemistry" which is actually an additive if you use RO water as has to be used very often overseas. This product contains essential salts for discus and claims to be pH neutral, I think this means it contains no carbonates which anything that is meant for discus must not contain, but it does stabilize the pH at a level that depends on how much you add, you can stabilize the pH nicely at about 6.5. I am very happy with the results in that it works against the pH dives, so I can recommend this to you to overcome possible repetitions of this scare.

At the moment, I would do nothing and add NOTHING else, don't be tempted to want to do anything as more additives mean more upsets, so do not do this. The fins will be milky for a few days and then recover, but discus like yours can recover from fin burns very well, so don't panic mechanic!

Kind regards,

Dirk

 

Thanks Dirk

 

Sorry one more Q can I still do the daily siphons to take out the excess food or must I not even stress them in that regard?

 

and if not how long must I wait for the next water change, I did one 3 days ago and they are due for one 2mr.

Kind regards

Jason

 

No, you can carry on with normal tank maintenance that is not going to make a difference, but wait for another day before you do the water change.

Kind regards,

Dirk

 

They are looking better today already!