New discus owner needs help!

[christeengee]

I was recently given a 35 gal aquarium with two discus fish from a friend who had them less than a year and did not know alot about the fish or maintenance and care for them. The gravel was never filtered, PH or nitrates checked, or water changed often.

The fish and tank have been with me for two months and have been moved twice in that time. The second move was tramatic because power was out for over 12 hours without a filter or heat. I lost one of the discus shortly afterward. Since then, I have been reading all the information I can on these fish, and realize the care required to keep them healthy, but some of it is confusing and contradicting.

Never having an aquarium before, I am thrilled and am determined to keep this discus alive and get more, but I could use some help from other Discus owners as far as maintence, care, feeding, and introducing new fish. I check the PH, Amonia, Nitrates/ites....and the Nitrates are high. I've been doing weekly 5 gal water changes and small vacuum gravel.

My surviving discus is swimming sideways right now...not good and keeping close to the top of the tank. He also has a little white around his mouth and would puff up his "fish lips" and gills occassionally. Not a normal behavior?

I bought Melafix antibacterial solution and have used that for the past two days, and have AmQuel+ to remove nitrates, but don't want to kill my existing discus. Any suggestions???

 

[Purrbox]

How high are your Nitrates? You want to keep them below 40ppm, preferable below 20ppm. You may need to step up you water changes to be able to get them back to acceptable levels.

You may want to post in the unheathly fish forum, as you will get a lot more feedback as to what is wrong with your Discus and what your treatment options are. Do you have plants in your tank? If not, perhaps we can get one of the mods to move your post to the appropriate forum.

 

[Zagz]

I recently had this problem and BrianNY helped me through it. First do a water change. At least 50%. What have you been feeding him? Adding some epsom salt to the water would be good, I used 1 tsp per 10 gal. Discus do not like high nitrates so the best thing you can do is get the nitrates down, keep doing water changes as much as needed to get the nitrates down. What temp are you keeping the discus tank at? Discus prefer warmer temps between 84-88 F. I would hold off on feeding him right now and concentrate on getting water parameters in check. Make sure the water you add is warm as the tank water and add your dechlorinator. Once you have the nitrates down add the epsom salt. Also I would pm BrianNY he is an expert with discus. BrianNY .

Good luck and please keep us posted.

 

[BrianNY]

I agree with you christeengee. Much of the info on discus is confusing and contradictory. I applaud your efforts to keep this terrific species.

Without knowing all these fish have gone through, my take is that they were severely stressed. The move and loss of power contributed to an already bad situation. My first rule in keeping these fish healthy is do a pwc. That's also my 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th rule. The reason is they are quick to bounce back once environmental conditions are brought back to their liking. It would be a good idea to increase the surface agitation to oxygenate the water if you see the fish breathing rapidly.

Could you tell me how you are filtering the water?

 

[Zagz]

How is the discus doing today?