Discus going mad!

[Bad Inferno]

Hi,

I have taken a male red turq from my planted display tank and placed him with a new female into a BB tank. This was done about 3-4 weeks ago and both fish look great. Both fish seem a little shy however are eating and do come to the front.

OK I have watched my male turq go crazzy for about 15 seconds (I think he wants to kill himself) as he flies around the tank bashing into the walls until he floats on his side (think he knocks himself out !) and then he swims away and hides in the corner for the rest of the day. I have seen him do this 3 times now, and I have not spooked him.

The tank is
not in a high traffic area
B.B with potted plants
Only the two discus in the tank (they do gerenally swim together all the time)
Ammonia only trace just above zero (tank is only 4 weeks old)
PH 6.5
110 litre tank + sump. W/C 15 litres morning / 15 litre at night both with vac.
The tanks are drilled and the internal overflow does create some noise

Any thoughts ?

[weird]

Are you sure your ph and temp is stable ? Are you using ph buffers ? How are you preparing your water.

That is quite a small tank (narrow 3ft tank?) so water changes could potential have much greater effect on ph and temp, than say a larger tank.

[Bad Inferno]

No I do not use ph buffers...I fill a bucket out of the tap..heat it to ~28 and put 5 ml of conditioner in it and pour it into the sump...So I think it is getting a good mix when entering the tank. I have had this fish for over a year and he has seemed ok up until now. I would get a pH swing in my main tank by at least .3-.4 when doing a water change and has not seemed to effect him in the past. With such a small volume that is why I ws doing one bucket int he morning and one at night, so i change 10% at a time.

[flukes]

Ammonia only trace just above zero (tank is only 4 weeks old)

Any ammonia is bad for fix, consider it espetos for fish!...with quicker damaging results...

[nag]

Hi:
One of my friend lost his Discus in a similar manner :( So, just be watchful!

[Bad Inferno]

Pic attached...just having a rest...or sick ?
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v319/rjconway/IMG_0004.jpg

[luvmydiscus]

Very pretty fish, does it eat when you feed? Sure hope you can find out what is wrong :cry:

As for your bugs what types of plants do you have in your tank? Anything floating?

Like I said with the water sprite it was just loaded with jumping like water fleas. I would open the lid and oh my god. I threw out the plant but still had those little buggars in there for a while. The fish put the end to them very quickly when they no longer had anything to hide in :wink:

Keep us posted :)

[Bad Inferno]

Well it's a sad day today as my poor little Turq passed away ! This is my first loss of a discus since starting two years ago... though I only have 5 fish (well 4 now) it's still sad.

Oh well suppose it's time to go shopping

[parasite]

sorry to hear about your loss :(

[weird]

Really sorry to hear ... Bad Inferno.

[luvmydiscus]

Sorry to hear about your discus :(

good luck with the rest of your fish :D

[Bad Inferno]

I thought about cutting him open and have a look in his gut however could not really bring myself to do that. His overall condition looked great so I will put it down to just one of those "things"

[nag]

Sincere empathies...

[Trebs]

Discus flying all over the tank is a sure sign of poor water quality. There was no metion of your NITRITE/NITRATE levels!!! This is the most important thing to test for when the PH is below neutral - esp in a new tank.

When the ph is below neutral ammonia levels alone are not a reliable indicator of water quality - i.e. you can have a reading of little or no ammonia and still have very high nitrite. Also nitrite cycling takes longer to cycle through a spike than ammonia does, so its often the second stage of cycling that is the most dangerous.

I'm willing to bet this was the problem(high nitrite in addition to the presence of ammonia) - caused by your tank not being fully cycled before moving the fish in.

It is also very important if you have a reading above zero for either ammonia or nitrite that you throw in an airstone - once the bacteria catch up to the levels of ammo/nitrite/nitrate they will suck all the oxygen out of the water while they break them down.

It's a tough lesson to learn when you lose a fish - sorry to hear about the loss.

[Bad Inferno]

You are correct with the tank only being 4-5 weeks old and will buy a Nitrite test kit and see the levels.

The other thing I did in the last 5-10 days is I put a large sword plant into the tank....sounds OK however I did take some soil from the garden placed it in the bottom of the pot and then put 1" of stones on top. Maybe there was something in the soil that was leaching out into the water.