Could My Discus be sick?

[Plecolover18]

I'm pretty sure this started yesterday when I got back from vacation when I found my young Marlboro discus dead floating on the surface. So today I am worried about my newer two discus. They are hanging around in the back of the tank, not eating, and i've noticed my wild type (Not wildcaught) scratching on plants and hanging most of his time behind the filter. My older blue diamond had been aggressive towards the other two discus in a fashion of chasing them around and has been acting more like a angelfish than a discus. I can't and Don't want to remove him thought and I doubt he could of killed the Marlboro. What I want to know is could this be fatal, caused 100% by aggression and is there a treatment.

Tankmates:

3 discus
9 Colombian tetras
2 yoyo loaches
1 butterfly cichlid

 

[anteatergoanna]

What size tank, and what are your water parameters ? Ammonia, ph, nitrite , nitrate. How long was the dead fish in the water, I would do a 50% wc ASAP.

 

[treemanone2003]

There's a lot of variables here that more answers are needed before we can honestly go further.

What size is the tank ? What is the tank setup ? Planted or not, something to break up direct line of sight and help establish territories, substrate or bb ? What is your WC schedule, tank parameters, replacement water parameters, do you age it, treat it ? Do you use any buffers to try to recreate the exact conditions of the Amazon ? ( If so, theses are really just a waste of time and money IMO ) Can you post pics of all your Discus ? Can you explain "wild type" ? Do you mean they are fry of wild caught Discus ? What size were they when you got them, how long have you had them, and what size are they now ? Where did they come from ?

To go into some other things. Discus do best in groups of at least 5-6 and preferably more. The idea behind this is the fact that they are schooling fish AND it helps to spread out aggression better in larger groups. It's about establishing a hierarchy. All fish will display some kind of aggression if not kept in large groups. It is extremely possible that one was picked on too much. It's also possible that it was sick when you got it and stressed beyond a point it could recover from due to the aggression in the tank with a smaller number of fish than recommended.

Also, were these fish all purchased and introduced together or at different times AND did you QT them when you got them ? Did they all come from the same source ? Different "types" of Discus should not be kept together for various reasons. They should all be kept separately. Asians with Asians, Stendkers with Stendkers, wilds with wilds.

So to precisely answer your question, ABSOLUTELY, aggression can lead to death of a fish. The best treatment will consist of the following ideas : First would be to increase the number of Discus in the tank to at least 5-6, keeping in mind that the minimum tank size should be AT LEAST 55g. Adults require 10g per fish. A larger than (with more Discus) 55g tank. This will give them more room to have for their own territory. If this is something you can't do at this time, I would suggest to rehome them for their own health and welfare.


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[Plecolover18]

Thanks for the reply. My discus live in a moderately planted 37 gallon that has been running for about two years. I will gladly debate you on my fishes tank size as well as I know, I bought these fish out of a well trusted breeder from Baltimore, Discus Hans who is with the European discus breeders.
With my water changes I don't age my water but I do add discus buffer to stabilize my pH. I keep my temperature around 85 degrees. I do water changes every week till when I get up to six discus than I will do waterchanges every other day.
I bought all my discus in different times. My wild type has been bred of a generation of discus caught in the wild.

Hope this helped

Thanks,
Plecolover


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[FishyFreak]

That is to bad The cheapest discus I have seen is $80. have never kept any type of cichlid, let alone discus. What are your water params?

 

[treemanone2003]

Thanks for the reply. My discus live in a moderately planted 37 gallon that has been running for about two years. I will gladly debate you on my fishes tank size as well as I know, I bought these fish out of a well trusted breeder from Baltimore, Discus Hans who is with the European discus breeders.
With my water changes I don't age my water but I do add discus buffer to stabilize my pH. I keep my temperature around 85 degrees. I do water changes every week till when I get up to six discus than I will do waterchanges every other day.
I bought all my discus in different times. My wild type has been bred of a generation of discus caught in the wild.

Hope this helped

Thanks,
Plecolover


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First off I don't understand why you'd want to debate me about the tank size. Secondly, if you got them from Hans, I would contact him about them and not ask around here. He's been an importer/breeder for 34 years now. He would have the best advice. After all, they came from him.

As far as the buffer and aging, he will probably agree the buffer is a waste of money and the aging will get the same results. And he may have some other recommendations for your WC schedule too. If you'd like, I can ask him on the other forum we chat at. He's a great guy and gets back quickly. He actually just won an award at the NADA show this past weekend in Texas for an entry.

Hopefully you won't be putting six into that tank. It's quite small especially being "moderately planted" as you state. As far as what info you've supplied helping, eh sort of. Sounds like you know it all thou. Good luck.


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[Dennisdiscus]

As soon as I switch to reverse osmosis water I never had problems with my discus


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