Skitish Discus

[rburrowes]

Hey Guys,

I've never had this before, I have a really skitish discus, started happening about a week ago, anything walks in front of the tank or if other discus approach it, it ducks behind a piece of wood and would sit there until another discus follows it, then it comes back out.

But it flew across the tank in about .005ms and almost jumped out of the tank.

How do I calm him down?

Cheers
Rob

[rburrowes]

I will say when I put him in a breeding cage by himself, he becomes very calm, and his stress lines disappear.

[Nev]

Has it been getting bullied lately?
Poetry reading and chamber music might help, other than that I've got nothing.

[Exotic Aquatic]

Time and clean water. Some say a towel over the rank bur in my experience it slows the whole process down (unless you plan to keep your tank covered forever?).

Don't let kids near the tank, and give it 1-6 weeks, should come good rob... It's just cichlid pecking order behavior, they eventually get over it.

Often catching them and keeping them in a bucket during a water change, rearranging the whole tank to look like new turf, then putting them back weakest to strongest can help.

[jim from sydney]

Discus are slow moving fish by nature. Movements faster than their own may upset them. I find they need time to adjust to your own movements in the room. Spend time with them in front of the tanks , not to close, and get them used to your movements.. Slowly does it. It works for me.

Good Luck.

[Nev]

Should of asked this earlier, but is this a new fish, how many discus in the tank?
And of course, what are your water conditions (joking) coz thats allways asked for most things - lol
Back to the topic, has everything calmed down?

[rburrowes]

Hey Guys,

Yeah the water parameters were perfect and he wasn't the new kid on the bloke either, not sure what happened to him, he ended up almost tearing one eye out on a sharp piece of wood when he darted around and he eventually parked himself beside the heater over one night and I came out in the morning and he had a massive burn mark on him, so I decided to put him out of his misery

Cheers

Rob

[Nev]

Sorry to hear that RB, but thanks for the update.

[shannon]

Hi Rob,sorry to here about your loss.In my opinion the fish had flukes,I have had fish with the same symptons as yours.I treated the fish by giving them a pp bath a number of times with great results,search on here about the treatment of gill flukes as flukes is very contagious. :( :(
Cheers Shannon

[rburrowes]

Thanks Shannon, had the same thought. Started a Big L and Prazi treatment yesterday. We'll see what happens