The fish have made a remarkable recovery Barbara. You've done a wonderful job with them :P Love the royal blues. My favourite fish too.
It's interesting that you should mention the 'speeding thru the tank'. I witnessed it today for the first time in my ten foot wild tank. The fish was skimming across the surface of the water, avoiding the driftwood, and without the usual fin flicking that I've seen in domestic fish doing a dash thru the tank.
Doesn't seem to be associated with any sort of parasite or a problem with the water quality.
Have you got any idea what causes it it?
This is the first time I've seen it happen with the wilds.
Thirty-five years keeping and breeding discus, and I'm still learning :P
Merrylin, watch that fish closly. Was it showing stress bars and strong vivid colors? Sounds like the speeding I'am talking about. What pH you have in that tank? Do you use peat?
On this photo is discus just before it died after speeding. Notice the white strip that showed on it's body.
Thanks for that info Barbara. I will keep a close eye on the fish.
No vivid colours or stress bars, and no white mark on he body. Haven't seen the fish repeat the speeding, so perhaps it was a case of being bullied or something.
Water is pristine with twice weekly water changes and the pH kept at 5.5. Melbourne water is very soft at the moment, with almost no readable level of hardness, so maintaining low pH levels is no problem.
I don't use peat, but the tank is unplanted, sandy base and full of driftwood.
Any thoughts?
Thirty-five years keeping and breeding discus, and I'm still learning :P
the pic looks a bit like liver failure to me ... the stress of transport or even being bullied can cause secondary infection internally
colour change can be caused by the pigments centres or nerve centre of the fish being affected darting is usually the fish trying to move but unfortunantly cant control itself to the extent a healthy fish could .
It's always darkest before dawn ... so if you're going to steal some rocks
from your neighbours garden for your display tank, that's the time to do it.
Few months past, so I tought I will give you a little up date about our wild discus. Two weeks ago Polish Club held a Championship show, and we have done realy well with our fish, taking;
2-nd and 5-th place in green class
1-th and 3-rd in heckel class
4-th in blue class
and our heckel was 3 -rd in wild discus grup (37 wilds were entered) and 24-th over all in show.
President - K.S. Andrzej Sieniawski
Dr.Sun See Seng
Heiko Bleher
Jaffrey Tan
Dougall Steward
Hudobski Zbigniew
Beata Jarka
Izabela Wilk
Marek Marcinkiewicz
Wojciech Grzegorzyca