discus acting withdrawn - help please

[artie santos]

i have 8 discus in a 56 gallon tank the largest is maybe 4 1/2 inch smallest 2 1/2
I lost one discus wont eat stays alone and got skinny his gills are fine no visible body parasite. Now i have another one showing the same signs. They are the smaller of the group. I do 20% water change every week lately my water has gotten dull i believe because of beefhearts.Didnt before .My ammonia level
is 0 my Ph went a little low 6.0.
Trying not to lose another Discus they are hard to come by. Also have 4 rainbow in same tank

[*Chris*]

first off mate with eight discus in the tank i would be doing more than one very small water change a week
discus love water changes
ph of 6 is perfect for them , id be looking at your nitrates
what filtration do you run? it sounds like your discus had worms a simple course of levimisole for all your fish every 6-12months is all you need to control an outbreak.
BUT i would start with doing at least 30% waterchanges 3-4 times a week
EXAI

[mcloughlin2]

Yes your tank is overcrowded .. You need to be doing about three 30-40% water changes a week at the least .. It would be even better if you could do a 20% water change daily ...

I would also say that your discus have worms ... When they get worms they tend to stop eating and seperate from the group like you have stated in the symptoms ..

HTH and goodluck.

Sam

[gro]

what do you do for worms (epsom salts??)

i have one with those sypmtoms but thought he may have been just a bit freaked out after a fairly large gardening session

[MattB]

I'm no expert keeper but sometimes my smallest runt discus hides behind the driftwood a bit and as soon as I do a water change he reverts back to normal, swims around with the other bigger discus and eats well. I do 2 x 30% water changes per week, and I find that WC'ing really is the secret to discus keeping. If I had the time I'd do more lol