My two new discus in trouble

[Zephaniah]

I introduced two discus (a little less than 2inches each) into my 46 gallon tank yesterday and they are acting very very timid. They are just staying in one place the whole time and not coming up for food.
Tankmates:
4 Angelfish, sizes range from 1-3 inches
3 Tetras
1 algae eater

Water conditions:
PH: 6.0
Temp: 80 degrees F
Zero Ammonia, Nitrite, and Nitrates

The tank is about 2 weeks old.

What could be wrong? How do I get them to perk up and start eating?

[AHC]

They may be just getting used to your tank. They are very young and are easily stressed. Did you quarentine the new fish? What kind of angels do you have? Angels to start with are very agressive compared to the discus and will scoff the food before the discus can graze on them. Bring young fish they will get stressed by Angels. In saying that, some aquarists have had success.

Personally, Angels and Discus dont go. Especially the Black angels that carry more parasites that harm Discus then the normal Angels. Do you have a UV light?

[AHC]

:shock: TWO WEEKS OLD? i just re-read your thread. Do you mean fully cycled for 2 weeks or just started for 2 weeks?

[discusluver]

hi there i agree angels and discus do not go well together and would suggest that u select 1 or the other they look gr8 together as they are both pretty fish but the resulting war that you get is not a nice sight :(
i rekon go with the discus but i am extremly bias towards discus. try peppermint brislies and corys they are gr8 tankmates and generally dont annoy each other. :D
Cheers

[Hollowman]

The tank is not cycled!! :evil:

[JoeDiscus85]

The last time i bought 2 new baby discus, I had2 angel fish also, That wasnt working out, So i plucked the angels out and gave them to my brother inlaw. Its been heaven ever since, Plus ive heard angel fish have somthing called capillaria(sp)? Wich pass onto discus very easily.



Joe

[Hollowman]

You never addressed the cycling issue, a two week old tank will not be cycled, therefore you risk severe problems, illness and death :shock:

[Merrilyn]

Welcome to the forum Zephanian.

If you've only just set your tank up 2 weeks ago, and you already have ten fish in there, it seems you've been given some poor advice about cycling and stocking a tank.

A tank should be cycled for around 6 to 8 weeks before you add your fish, especially discus, who don't cope well with an uncycled tank.

For now, you need to make sure your ammonia and nitrite don't reach toxic levels, by doing daily water changes of at least 30%.

Please read through the section on cycling tanks, and keep checking your ammonia, nitrite and nitrate levels.

What you want to see, is zero ammonia, zero nitrite and a nitrate reading of at least 10. That's the readings of a healthy, cycled tank.

[Zephaniah]

I'm pretty new to aquarium keeping so was a bit confused on the tank cycling.

Yeah, I will be doing daily water changes. I did a 50% water change last night and they seemed to perk up a little but still aren't eating. Anything else I need to do?

The other fish are thriving though.... chasing each other around and swarmming to the food.

I am thinking about taking the discus back to the lfs even if I don't get my money back just because I don't want these little guys dying.

[AHC]

Ok, you need to do lots of water changes as stated. Discus need the cleanest of clean water. If your in sydney and close to Newington then i have no problem housing them for you free of charge until your tank cycles. or, if you have a spare small tank - set it up (heater, air, with aged water) and keep them in there doing daily 100% water changes. This way your tank can cycle without them being effected.

lastly, some LFS will house them for you. A good LFS would have asked you questions before selling you Discus to find out what set up etc you have. They should have made sure you have done your research. But as alway money prevails!

[Zephaniah]

Ok so 50% daily water changes seem to be working. Also got them frozen bloodworms which all the fish seem to enjoy. The frozen bloodworms seem to be a good choice because they don't float a the top of the tank. Flakes and freeze dried bloodworms get eaten up so quickly by the angels that the discus have no chance it seams.

[Zephaniah]

So here's what happening now. I moved the three angels and two discus into a 10 gallon tank that i know for sure is cycled to let the 46 gallon tank cycle. I'm planning on moving them back to the 46 gallon after a few more weeks.

They seem to be doing well in the 10 gallon after the stress of the move wore off except now there is some really aggressive behavior from one of the discus. He won't let the other discus eat at all. The aggressive discus will ram the timid discus (almost flipping him around) whenever he sees him going for food. The timid discus doesn't look good at all. He tries to eat but hardly gets any food.

Any advice?

[Hollowman]

Discus are shoaling fish that do better in larger groups. I would have predicted that this was going to happen. Answer= more fish of the same size, 5 to 6 fish total. Make sure qt is observed, and that you have the space to keep more fish happily.

[Zephaniah]

I was planning to get two more discus when I move them back into the 46 gallon.

Right now I think if I get more for the 10 gallon, they would get even more unhappy due to overcrowding.

Each fish is approximately 2-3 inches. That's already pushing the 1 inch per gallon rule I've read about.

[Hollowman]

You could always use the larger tank for Qt, with large daily water changes, it would be ok :wink:

[Zephaniah]

I thought about doing that but wouldn't large daily water changes just make the cycling process extraordinarly long? I mean if I am always keeping the ammonia levels very low due to the water changes, how will the nitrifying bacteria grow?

[Hollowman]

the bacteria will still grow as the fish create waste, the water changes will just lower the ammonia enough to protect the fish.

Seems you are stuck between a rock and a hard place... try feeding the discus in 2 different places, the aggressor cannot patrol both places, and therefore the bullied one will have time to eat too. try that.

H :wink:

[Zephaniah]

I can definately give that a shot.

[Zephaniah]

I can definately give that a shot.

[Zephaniah]

Sorry to dig up an old thread. Thought I'd give an update.

The angelfish are gone. Replaced with a few more discus to stop the bullying behavior. So total discus in the tank is now 5. There is a school of 9 rummynoses in there as well as two little black tetras.

I've been keeping up with 50% water changes every two days, figuring with this many water changes, the fish will be ok even though it's still cycling. It's been 4 months and I'm still seeing trace ammonia, zero nitrites, and very little nitrates.

I can't imagine what I'm doing wrong.
I even removed my gravel and went bare bottom so I can suck up all uneaten food and waste immediately.

I age my water in buckets for 24 hours and condition it with API Stress Zyme or whatever it's called. Could it be that I don't have an air stone in my buckets so that all the clormines, etc are killing off beneficial bacteria?

The fish seem very happy though. In the 4 months they have all grown very well and eat and poop like little piggies.

I'm just concerned about my water parameters and the bio filter.

[waitaki]

what sort of filtration system do you have? after 4 months witht eh regular amount of water changes you are doing I would have expected to see ammonia reading 0. with 5 samll discus your tank size should be ok, but not so once they grow.

Is stress zyme ok for aging water? I thought it held bacteria?? You should try and get something like API Tap water conditioner or another product called prime. Just make sure it say dechlorinator in it somewhere. What is your ph reading? You can overcome the harmful effects of ammonia by having a lower ph level < 6.4 but you can't drop your ph level too much at once, you have to drop it slowly.

Are you adding anything else to the water that might be killing the bacteria? No meds??

[Zephaniah]

No meds. Sorry meant Stress Coat, not Zyme. It says it's a tap water conditioner...
PH is 6.8
Started with an Ehiem classic 2213. About 1.5 months ago I added a Whisper Power Filter 40 thinking that I'm not getting enough filtration because I'm still seeing ammonia.

The only thing I added recently (last week) was some liquid plant food (Chealted iron and potassium) with my water changes.