Sick and Deceased Discus - Too much tank maintenance!

[ikavia]

I found one of my juvenile discus dead this morning (14.02.07). In addition one of my other ones appears to be acting a little funny so I am being cautious and treating this as a suspicious death.

The discus that died was the smallest of my four (I have a few other misc fish as well left over from my community tank) and was initially picked on by one of the others. However over the past few weeks this appeared to settle down and all was going well.

Looking through my records I have changed quiet a few things over the past few weeks so I can't really narrow down what may have caused the death and the current funny behaviour of one of the others, if my maintenance has caused it at all. Please find dates and actions below:

04.01.07 - New External Canister Filter Installed

03.02.07 - Undergravel filter and associated airstones removed (I had read that the airstones didn't really provide oxygen but just moved the surface area around enough to absorb oxygen - thought that with the movement caused by the canister filter outlet plus plants that there would be enough oxygen).

03.02.07 - plants put into terracotta pots with a mixture of Flora Root and gravel

03.02.07 - changed to Seachem Flourish from Leaf Zone

08.02.07 - food block put in as went away (had friend feeding every second day as well with blood worms and normal feeding routine). Didn't remove until this morning.

11.02.07 - Moss wall frame installed: construction materials included plastic garden mesh (scrubbed well), suction cups, fishing line, plastic electrical cable ties.

11.02.07 - new filter pads put into canister filter - noticed that a whole heap of white stuff that appeared to be part of the filter came out but cleared up after a while

11.02.07 - 30% water change

12.02.07 - More gravel added - washed well before.

12.02.07 - Borneo sword and Red Stem added.

12.02.07 - new T5 light installed (went from 30 watts to 78 watts).

Actions taken today:
1) 10% water change this morning
2) pH was at 6.7 which was a bit lower than normal (think food block contributed)
3) KH was 89 ppm which is higher than normal (think food block contributed)
4) No Ammonia detectable
5) put airstones back in
6) removed old food block

Does any of this look dodgy? Should I remove the moss wall in case the construction materials are having an impact on water quality. Could it have been the food block? Too much light? Lack of oxygen?

Help!

[Hail2Pitt02]

I know you said that no ammonia was readable but the entire time I was reading your post I was thinking this sounds like the tank went through a re-cycle. I would test your tank for nitrites. If you have any detectable levels of nitrites, the chances are your tank did go through another mini-cycle. Hopefully when you swapped the filter and the pads, you didn't scrub down the walls like crazy or vacuum the gravel to heavily. This would have helped maintain a decent portion of the beneficial bacteria.

My last word of advice would be to never use the little white food pyramids while you are gone. The pollute water something awful and again could have contributed to the death of your young discus. It's better to not feed your fish at all as opposed to use any product of that nature.

As far as oxygen levels go an air stone couldn't hurt, especially since Discus tank temperature is a lot higher than most fish. As you know the higher the water temp the less oxygen it can hold, but if you fish are not gasping or laboring in the tank that is probably not the problem.

My guess is a mini-cycle occurred when you changed the filter. That or the youngster was not of good quality (which could account for his small size) and just died because of that.

[Robdog]

I think your tank has seen a lot of action in a fairly short space of time. To your credit, the canister was added over a month ago so it would have had time to gather some beneficial bacteria but I think the last service you gave it and the addition of new gravel might have upset the apple cart and stressed the little bugger to death.

Personally I would never add gravel to an existing tank with the fish still in the tank no matter how well it was washed. That's just me. Pour freshwater on their heads from a bucket and they line up to have a shower, pour gravel on their heads......
(yes I know you wouldn't have poured the gravel on their heads...or did you )

and in future i'd scrap the feeding block. Those things are crap. If you only went away for 3 days and someone was coming over to feed them anyway, it probably did more harm than good. Wild discus wouldn't get food every day so it would probably do your guys some good every now and then. Not too long for juvi's though.


Hope this helps a bit. It's bad losing a fish but it happens

[Robdog]

Just thought of something else.

You have gone from UGF to an external canister. All of your poo and crap fish wastes etc will have been drawn into the gravel for breakdown where as now they probably would be on the surface of the gravel awaiting syphoning or current from the cansiter to break them up.
All the stuff in the gravel may have now gone suicidal and suffocated with new gravel on top, a slight disturbance might reak toxic havoc.

[ikavia]

Yeah I'm not too keen on the blocks but I was worried about them not getting too much food. From memory I had one of those blocks in when I got crypt melt over Christmas so I will start a bonfire and burn those babies tonight!!!

Robdog - I thought the fish would enjoy some scale exfoliation whilst I showered them with gravel. No I didn't shower them - I only added it as after I put my plants into pots there wasn't enough gravel to keep the pots covered thanks to my annoying little bristlenosed catfish.

I did give my gravel a big cleanout when I swapped filters. I thought of that this morning but hadn't really given it much credit.

It seems like it is probably a combination of a few things, probably the feeding block and mini cycle. Hopefully when I get home from work tonight I won't be mourning again!

[ikavia]

In response to your input Robdog re gravel I syphon my gravel each week when I do a water change. Do you think maybe I should put my undergravel filter back in (oh god that's going to be a pain in the butt)? Is a water change once a week (approx 25%) with syphoning of the gravel enough. Granted with the plants I can't vacuum all of the gravel and generally with a 25% water change I only get to vacuum about 40% of the gravel anyway.

[Robdog]

No hell no! Throw that UGF as far as you can!
You should be cool with that WC regime. Probably not best to plunge the gravel thingo all the way to the bottom if it was regularly done before. Just skim it over the surface of the gravel and you should pick up most of the bigger stuff. The rest can be plant food.

I'd leave the lights off for a day or so if the others are looking off colour and probably reduce your feeding until things become a little more stable which is maybe what your discus are craving.

Good luck

[Th0mas]

Rob is right about the UGF - keep them away from the tank (if it's already out of the tank). When I shutdown my UGF (IMO - it's a BIG mistake I've chosen to use it), I only took the air tube and up lifts away, leaving the plate where they are. Although it's a waste of space, but the risk of poisoning the tank during the removal process is too high to justify their complete removal.

Other addition that may benefit is a FBF attached to the output of your external canister (only if the canister generate enough pressure to drive it).

Thomas.

[Hail2Pitt02]

Rob is right about the UGF - keep them away from the tank (if it's already out of the tank). When I shutdown my UGF (IMO - it's a BIG mistake I've chosen to use it), I only took the air tube and up lifts away, leaving the plate where they are.

Im not so sure that was a good idea. One of the reasons UGFs are so bad is that all that gunk under there can be a nitrate factory if the UGF is not perfectly maintained. By taking off the tubes and covering them over you left all that gunk, except now very little oxygen is getting down there. I would think you are running the risk of a huge anaerobic pocket forming. If for some reason your tank loses power, within a few hours that gunk will back flush toxins into the tank. If you have an UGF and the tubes are still, poking out you can put a battery power pump down them to help prevent this. If I were you ThOmas I would get those plates out of there and clean out everything you could. Your fish will be ok (especially if you can temp. move them while you complete the process). Doing a couple of massive water changes will clear the water up and make it healthy for your fish again.

[ikavia]

I think that it may have been a lack of oxygen. I thought that I had seen the fish gasping for air as their gills appeared to be working overtime, but then I thought I was just being paranoid. However when I got home I noticed a definite difference in the way their gills were moving. A lot more relaxed and my mollies which were previously spending a lot of the time near the surface were swimming all over the tank again.

I thought that my filter outlet would generate enough surface movement to absorb oxygen but I was wrong! I will come up with a more permanent way to install the airstones (as previously were in the UGF contraption).

FYI - I removed the enitre UGF set up as I want to move to a more heavily planted tank and I had heard that the grate wasn't the best thing for plants that weren't in pots.

Also can someone tell me what a FBF attachment is - in reference to Thomas' post. Thanks.