why are they scared so much?

[clinny_d]

hey,
im a new one to discus (2 months), anyway when i bought the fish they seemed really normal, but after the past few days they get really really scared when ever i come to the tank, but before this never used to happen, would there be any real reason for this?

thanks very much

[samir]

your ammonia reading is ?

[clinny_d]

hey samir thanks for the reply.
no its shouldn't be its moderately planted, and i change the water every 3-4 days, im not quite sure im probally wrong.
theres not many fish in there atm.
3 discus (all around 5 cm)
2 small "electric blue" cichlids (5 cm)
1 small jewel cichlid (3cm)
2 small silver sharks (6cm)
2 sucker fish *sorry dont know what kind* (3cm)

cheers

[samir]

check ammonia first. are they eating ??? whats the temp of the tank ? those are not the chinese algae eaters are they ???

[clinny_d]

hey samir
yeah there eating fine, just when i go up to the tank they swim away, but when im gone then i look from a long distance i see them eating.
temps at 24-25, is that good or bad?
not sure, its a longish skinny one.
i got it cos i had an algae problem on the glass.

[kikoman]

yea.... why not the chinese algae eaters?
coz' I got one too!!! and u knw wat I never saw him again in my tank?

[taksan]

hey samir
yeah there eating fine, just when i go up to the tank they swim away, but when im gone then i look from a long distance i see them eating.
temps at 24-25, is that good or bad?
not sure, its a longish skinny one.
i got it cos i had an algae problem on the glass.


Temp is 24-25?

Try 28-29

[JamezMan]

Yeah you gotta bring your temp up.

[clinny_d]

hey taksan
i was going off one of those side thermometers and it siad 25, but then when i put the digital thermometer in there it was 28.
they seemed to have gone really shy in the last few days after i put some new plants in there, could that be the reason?

cheers

[taksan]

Unless you can provide exact readings as requested then there is no point continuing this conversation.

What is your ammonia reading ?
What is your nitrate reading ?
What is your nitrite reading ?
What is your GH ?
What is the correct temp?

[nicholas76]

hey samir thanks for the reply.
no its shouldn't be its moderately planted, and i change the water every 3-4 days, im not quite sure im probally wrong.
theres not many fish in there atm.
3 discus (all around 5 cm)
2 small "electric blue" cichlids (5 cm)
1 small jewel cichlid (3cm)
2 small silver sharks (6cm)
2 sucker fish *sorry dont know what kind* (3cm)

cheers


You keep discus with these other fish,?? :shock:

[clinny_d]

yeah nick, at first i thought it was bad and was going to move them, but the discus dominate the tank, the "electric blue" which i bigger then them, is scared of them.

[nicholas76]

id honestly look at moving them mate,, those other buggers will get aggressive soon enough and then it may be too late,


did you rectify the water issue?

post a picture if you can!

[clinny_d]

hey
oh ok, well my cuz is getting another tank, so ill but those ones in there,
yeah i did, im doing more water changes now, less percentile but more frequent.
ok i just finished taking pics tell me what u think.
cheers

[clinny_d]

heyhey
this is my tank.

[clinny_d]

this is some of my fish
do u think they looked stunted?

[clinny_d]

hey
update on the discus, there not as scared now, but still very very timid.
i check the ammonia and it was 0.0 i wasnt sure this was right so i did it 3 times, but it was still 0.0
by the way, does anyone think that one of the PB are stunted?
cheers

[madasa]

I wouldnt keep my discus with any of those fish and I suspect they are the reason yours are timid. Apart from the bala sharks - which can get huge - the blues and jewels can be quite aggressive and the nice flat surface of a discus would be mighty tempting to a sucker fish!

No nitrite or nitrate reading? Is there a reason for this? Nitrite needs to be 0 and nitrates less than 10ppm.

Temp should preferably be up around 30 ... if you do this and keep their tankmates then the tankmates will struggle.

[Merrilyn]

Hi clinny-d. It's a bit hard to tell from those photos, but one of them does look to have a rather large eye in relation to the body size. Feed him up well and he'll turn into a nice fish.

Discus don't compete well with other fish for food. They like to glide over the bottom and browse for an hour or more after the food has been dropped in.

With those tankmates, I wouldn't think there was much left over after the first few minutes.

The fish you have in your tank need totally different water to discus, which need soft, slightly acidic water. If you are able to move them into another tank, I think you'll find your discus do much better.

[samir]

the blue discus is definitely sick can never tell with pigeons. maybe better conditions may fix it. for the silver fish on top of the blue fish you need a frying pan,or if you really love it another tank :P

my guess is they are jumpy because they have flagellates. if you feed you fish 1.5gm metro / 100gm food mix exclusively for about 5 days, odds are they wont be jumpy anymore.