Discus

I have 2 discus in my 30 gallon tank. When I bought them I was told they were both turquoise. One DEFINITELY is ! He is BEAUTIFUL ! ( dorsal fin fully extented with that gorgeous turquoise colour )
The other is a bit smaller. His dorsal is clamped to his body & he has brown stripes running the width of his body. Can anyone shed some light on this for me ? Thanks.

 

The brown stripes are known as "stress bars." The idea is that those bars darken up when the fish is stressed. In my opinion, they can be somewhat misleading at times. I have a turquoise as well that sometimes displays his stress bars for no good reason, but they go away in short order. What concerns me a bit more is the clamped fins. The clamped fins combined with the stress bars is almost certainly an indication that something's not right.

My first guess is that the larger fish is beating up on the smaller one. One way to help with that is to find some other fish to act as distractions for your larger fish. Ideally, that would be more discus. However, if you can find some sufficiently large fish in place of a discus, it may work as well. Unfortunately, since you're only running a 30 gallon tank, you don't have too many options. You really need a larger tank to house what you're wanting.

If you have any kind of spare tank, you might try removing the larger fish and seeing if the smaller one comes around. After a while, the smaller fish will hopefully establish himself in your main tank. Once he's back to normal for a while (a week or more), you can reintroduce the larger fish and cross your fingers.

I've also had some success bringing less than healthy discus around by making sure my pH is sufficiently low and my temperatures are up. I maintain my discus at about 88 degrees and a pH of around 6.2. I've heard of folks treating sick discus by slowly raising temperatures to as high as 95 degrees and slowly lowering the pH to around 4. I wouldn't try this at this point.

I also stopped using Discus Buffer (I don't know if you're using this) and switched to Acid Buffer which doesn't buffer using phoshates. The lower phosphates seem to make the discus more comfortable, as well as help my algae issues. However, if you use RO or DI water (and you probably should), you have to be more careful with Acid Buffer since you've removed much of the buffering capabilities of the water. R/O Right can help with this.

From my experience, and I've seen it a couple of times, I would guess that if you can't make some kind of change, your smaller fish won't make it. He will eventually deteriorate to the point that he's just hanging out in the back corner of your tank taking period beatings from the larger fish. It won't take much of that before he's a goner.

Hope that helps,
Jonathan

 

Thanks Jason

Jason,

Thanks for all your information. It is greatly appreciated. The PH is around 6.4 so that is ok. I bumped the temperature up quite a bit. I'll have to keep my eye on it.

I googled it & it said ( as you did ) raise the temperature add some salt & do daily water changes. I don't know about the salt, but I'm about to do a water change now. Usually I do them twice a week. I'll do them daily & see what happens.

It is unusual. There doesn't appear to be any hostility. In fact, the last time I looked, they were side by side. He hasn't stopped eating either.

I have MANY plastic plants & some real ones. I also have rocks & quite a bit of driftwood. I may remove the plastic to give them some room.

They say discus are social animals, but if this one goes the other guy is on his own.

On the the water change. Wish me luck.

 

Wish Me Luck

Jason,

I removed all the plastic to give them some swimming room. I raised the temperature, did a water change & added 5 tablespoons of salt. (1tablespoon per 5 gallons ) I have a salt water aquarium so I used the salt I use for that. The salt is a one time deal, but the water changes are daily.

I don't mind. I love my aquariums & will do everything in my power to save this little guy.

I have my discus tank, a salt water tank & a goldfish tank so you can see I love em all. Aquariums & plants. ( inside, outside & aquatic ) Those are my hobbies.

Thanks again,
Gary.

 

Salt in a discus tank may not be the best idea. I was fairly sure most of the lower-pH FW fish don't handle aquarium salt well.

 

I've never used aquarium salt in my discus tank either. On occasion I've used Epsom salt, but only to relieve constipation. I also don't change my water daily. My discus tank gets a 50% water change once a week. I know there are a lot of folks out there that stress more frequent and larger water changes, but my schedule works for me (and my discus). However, for the time being, more frequent water changes might not be a bad idea.

Something to consider: Discus (as are all fish) are stressed by all of the rummaging around in their tank. Moving decorations, doing water changes, etc. are all stressful for them. There is definitely something to be said for leaving it alone. So, do what you need to do in the tank and get out.

Something else to consider: Make sure that the water you're introducing into the tank is high quality. Daily water changes might actually be making the situation worse if you're dumping junk in there day after day.

Regarding your plants and driftwood, make sure that when you place the objects, there are places for the discus to get in between and make themselves feel secure. A wall of plants along the back of the tank won't do them much good. They need to be able to feel secure. After time it'll be less imporant for them, but in the beginning it seems to help.

I didn't think of this earlier, but if you're not seeing any bullying, there's a possibility that parasites are to blame. If you picked up your discus from the LFS, there's a much greater possibility that's the case. Stringy, white poop is a dead givaway, although not always present. I picked up some Metro and dewormer from Rocky Mountain Discus a while back, plus some PraziPro from Drs Foster Smith (RMD sells it too, but it's way more expensive) and pre-treat all of my discus. When I get new discus, I put one or two discus in a ten gallon aquarium, raise the temps to about 90 degrees, treat per the directions on the packaging and do daily water changes. The full cycle takes about a month, but seems to help immensly.

By the way, my name's Jonathan.

Hope that helps,
Jonathan

 

This is the right dosage of adding salt to discus tanks but,

Never use marine salt to your discus tanks...Things can go wrong very badly...You can use normal non iodized cooking salt to your tanks...If you do a WC daily, you are basically removing the salt. At the same time you may dose the same amount of salt for the gallins removed from the tank..Adding lower dosages of salt increases the vigour, healing to some extent, and improves its immune...

 

Its a good sign that the guy is eating...If possible, you should watch the poop of the fish with the clamped fin and see if its white. That can confirm if he is just stressed from the bullying or if he has internal infections

Raising the temp and keeping up with the water changes are the right things to do for now

 

Jason,
You have been a great help. Since I last wrote I put 10 tablespoons of salt in the tank & raised the temperature. The temperature was 92 when I got up this morning. I thought that was a bit high so I tuurned it back some. I have done 2 water changes ( one yesterday; one today & washed down the sides oof the tank ) I searched google & put the plastic plants back in. ( LOL ) They said to create a line of plants across the middle so they couldn't see each other. I went further. I put a line of plants down the middle & another to divide the remainder of the tank in half once more. This is where the bully hangs out.

I watched the tank for about 30 minutes & the bully has not found the poor guy yet.

He is near ( not on ) the bottom breathing heavily. He is very dark. Hopefully this will give him time to recooperate. I just hope I haven't caught it too late.

He did eat again this morning, as much as the bully would let him. From now on, I'll put a sprinkle of food on each side of the tank.

 

I'll never understand it. I have been doing daily water changes. I raised the temperature. It is now 90. I think I'll leave it. I added the salt & plastic plants. Now, all of a sudden, it is the buddy system. No bullying. Where one goes the other follows. The one that was picked on still has his stripes, but his dorsal fin is extended. I have been doing some research. It says that the green Heckel has horizontal stripes. Maybe it was not all stress afterall. I'm sure that accounted for some of it.

Fish can be so confusing. I guess that is one of the things that attracts me to the hobby. I get upset when one of my fish is sick, but it is a fantastic feeling when you see results from your labour.