Discus HELP!..level Red

[Mr Pleco]

Everything was going fine in my discus tank, the only thing I could think of that was different.

1. I started feeding live black worms
2. Added a school of cardinal tetras.

Water tests where norm except nitrates went high >80PPM, tap water here is 20PPM. Because the Nitrates went high PH dropped from 6.5 to 6.0 as the KH was being consumed. Did a couple of water changes nitrates are back to previous levels 20-40PPM. However the Discus are still huddled in the corner together all are very dark. congo tetras, royal and snowball pleco's are doing well. All cardinals except 1 have expired.
Thought I infected my tank with parasites from either the blackworms or cardinals? So I treated the tank following directions with prazipro for 7 days. No changes. did a 25% water change and added carbon to filter to remove meds. next day no changes Discus not eating not in the front of the tank like before. Removed carbon and I'm now treating with mela fix.


One of my 5" lepoards starting swimming upside down so i moved him to th Qt tank.. They are not getting better could I have contracted Discus plaque? no noticeable issues except they have darkened.


Any sugestions on how to save the remaing 7 discus?

p.s. AMM and Nitrites are at zero to min levels based on API test kit.

 

[hillbilly]

What size is the tank? What is the temp.? Interesting that a school of cards increased bioload that much. Lay off the meds until you know what you're treating for. Randomly dumping s*%t into the tank is not productive. A 25% water change is nothing. It's only diluting it some. I suggest 50% daily water changes for a few days, and see what happens. It sounds like severe stress, but that can bring out things like Hex, so after a few days of clean water, you will know a lot more. If no improvement, then try to figure out what disease to treat for.

 

[justonemoretank]

If my source water had Nitrate of 20, I'd freak out. Then I'd start using RO/DI, or at least mixing it with the source water. Especially with Discus. Obviously, this may not be the root of the problem, but that high Nitrate level can't be helping.

 

[hillbilly]

Source water of 20ppm nitrate is not that big a deal with freshwater fish, as long as you do enough water changes to keep it around 20ppm. Probably half the water in the US has some level of nitrate, especially private wells.

 

[Mr Pleco]

What size is the tank? What is the temp.? Interesting that a school of cards increased bioload that much. Lay off the meds until you know what you're treating for. Randomly dumping s*%t into the tank is not productive. A 25% water change is nothing. It's only diluting it some. I suggest 50% daily water changes for a few days, and see what happens. It sounds like severe stress, but that can bring out things like Hex, so after a few days of clean water, you will know a lot more. If no improvement, then try to figure out what disease to treat for.

90 gal tank @ 81 f.... I just stored 40 gals of treated water , once the temp gets to 80 f.. I'll do a water change using all 40 gals and see what happens...then another one tomorrow..keep you posted tnx.

 

[hillbilly]

If you can, bump your temp. up to around 84 to 86 degress. You can get by with 81 in a discus tank, but that's at the bottom of the scale. 84-86 is much better.

 

[Yanbbrox]

I'm sorry to read I feel your pain.

I could never keep them, no matter what I did It would never work and they would get sick, One of my favorite fish and I just can't keep them, I must have spent a grand in total over two years with no joy. I hope it works out for you.

 

[justonemoretank]

Source water of 20ppm nitrate is not that big a deal with freshwater fish, as long as you do enough water changes to keep it around 20ppm. Probably half the water in the US has some level of nitrate, especially private wells.

You would have to do 100% water changes to make it 20, if the source water is 20, wouldn't you? If Nitrate had risen to 40 since the last water change, a 50% would only take you 30... unless I'm thinking about this wrong. If you're starting with 20, that means you'd easily hit 30 or 40, even with weekly or bi-weekly changes. How is this good for Discus? Like I said, I doubt this is directly the problem, but if it were me, I'd switch to RO.

 

[hillbilly]

You would have to do 100% water changes to make it 20, if the source water is 20, wouldn't you? If Nitrate had risen to 40 since the last water change, a 50% would only take you 30... unless I'm thinking about this wrong. If you're starting with 20, that means you'd easily hit 30 or 40, even with weekly or bi-weekly changes. How is this good for Discus? Like I said, I doubt this is directly the problem, but if it were me, I'd switch to RO.

Depends on many things, bio load and length of time between water changes are big ones. Personally, I rarely ever need to test or worry about it in my discus tanks. Most of my tanks have been running for years, so it's easy for me to spot something out of the ordinary. If I only did weekly or bi weekly water changes, my levels would be high, or higher. You could never keep them stable. I change 50 to 75% of water every other day in all my tanks. All food (except for live) is removed about 30 mins. after feeding. All the smaller tanks (under 100 gals.) are changed one day, and larger tanks the next. This routine, although a big pain in the butt, keeps my tanks fairly stable all the time. Stabilty is the key. Since everyone's setups are different, your's might call for more or less, or a higher % of water changes to remain stable.

 

[hedut]

Did you quarantine your cardinal before?