i am completely befuddled here. i have a total of 4 discus. three were doing absolutely fantastic; they were active, had great appetites, presented deep colors, and were responsive. the one on the bottom of the pecking order was a bit gaunt; he was really finicky about what he ate and more shy than the others. i worried about him.
so this morning, i turned on the lights and fed the fish. they were all doing well.
i left for the day and came back at night. i went to feed them and i noticed three of the discus were in extremely poor shape. the gill areas on two of them were white. and they two had heavy body slime.
i quickly did a partial water change, and added some stress coat and a bit of aquarium salt in a bowl and submerged it into the tank.
two of the 4 discus had no sense of balance, they were being pushed around by the current and had almost no ability to control themselves. i took those two and put them in a breeding net enclosure. less than five minutes later one discus died. a minute or two later, the other discus died.
the other discus that looked in bad shape was still mobile. i tried to catch him and put him in the net but he evaded me and ran behind some shelter. i decided to let him stay there. the 4th discus seems alright.
in addition to all this, my large male angelfish is breathing abnormally. his gill covers are protruding a bit, and his gills are pulsating a bit more rapidly with larger movements.
the only thing i did in the past few days was a partial water change. yesterday i added the some flourish excel, about 2x the normal dosage to kill off a rebound in algae growth (instead of 15ml for 30gal i dosed 30ml for the 30gal.) could the increased dosage of flourish excel resulted in the fish death? in everything i've read, anything over 3x is usually dangerous, but people have implemented 4-5x dosages without any adverse issues. from what i've read, high doses of flourish excel depletes the oxygen capacity of the water, but my tank is heavily aerated.
tank parameters:
temp - 83F
ph - 7.2
ammonia - 0ppm
nitrites - 0.25ppm
nitrates - 20ppm
the tank is heavily aerated through a powerhead.
EDIT:
as i was writing this, the third discus that went off to hide did also succumb to whatever condition affected him and the other two.
so this morning, i turned on the lights and fed the fish. they were all doing well.
i left for the day and came back at night. i went to feed them and i noticed three of the discus were in extremely poor shape. the gill areas on two of them were white. and they two had heavy body slime.
i quickly did a partial water change, and added some stress coat and a bit of aquarium salt in a bowl and submerged it into the tank.
two of the 4 discus had no sense of balance, they were being pushed around by the current and had almost no ability to control themselves. i took those two and put them in a breeding net enclosure. less than five minutes later one discus died. a minute or two later, the other discus died.
the other discus that looked in bad shape was still mobile. i tried to catch him and put him in the net but he evaded me and ran behind some shelter. i decided to let him stay there. the 4th discus seems alright.
in addition to all this, my large male angelfish is breathing abnormally. his gill covers are protruding a bit, and his gills are pulsating a bit more rapidly with larger movements.
the only thing i did in the past few days was a partial water change. yesterday i added the some flourish excel, about 2x the normal dosage to kill off a rebound in algae growth (instead of 15ml for 30gal i dosed 30ml for the 30gal.) could the increased dosage of flourish excel resulted in the fish death? in everything i've read, anything over 3x is usually dangerous, but people have implemented 4-5x dosages without any adverse issues. from what i've read, high doses of flourish excel depletes the oxygen capacity of the water, but my tank is heavily aerated.
tank parameters:
temp - 83F
ph - 7.2
ammonia - 0ppm
nitrites - 0.25ppm
nitrates - 20ppm
the tank is heavily aerated through a powerhead.
EDIT:
as i was writing this, the third discus that went off to hide did also succumb to whatever condition affected him and the other two.