Please help some questions about discus any help is appre.

mike55

my Discus they are about 7 to 8 months old and since i got them i have been struggling to keep them healthy. To my experience they are suppose to be swimming and be all around the tank however, my Discus look like they ich and most of the times they have their fins closed. I also think they have gill problem. when it comes to feed time they are really active but when it comes to time to swim around they just like to chill all togather and most of times they have their fins shrinked up.

Lupin

What are your water parameters? What is your tank maintenance schedule? Size of tank? Foods you provide them? Temperature?

mike55

Im sorry i have been really busy i couldn't even get online my online service was down. but i do appreciate your help now ill answer your questions. ph 6.6, hardness 200, temp around 84, water change every 4 days about 25% of the water, 120 gallon tank, food = blood warm. again thank you have a great day.

Lupin

Hi Mike,

What are your ammonia, nitrites and nitrates? How long have you had the tank running? How many fish do you add at a time?

jestep

What other fish are in the tank? Also, how long have they been in the tank.

Also, is there a lot of traffic around the tank, or is it low to the ground?

I've seen Discus be really sensitive to tank height. <2ft = bad

If they're active at feeding, that's a hopeful sign.

herefishy

My Discus are not all that active either. Most of their time is spent chilling out in the plants. They do get a little more active in reduced light.

Your maintainance schedule looks good. The pH in my Discus tanks is 6.8-7.0. My temp is 86 degrees Fahrenheit. you may want to raise your temp a tad. The tank sizes very from a 90g to a 210g. I have my lights on in those tanks 12 hours. The timers allow me to slowly bring down the lighting. The end of the lighting cycle is LED moonlights which stay on all night.

I don't have alot of problems with diseases, ich, fungus, and the like. But, I do think that your fish may be stressing form your lighting. Discus tend to dwell in heavily planted, overgrown, submerged woody areas. It is kind of hard for alot of light to penetrate the type of biotope.

As for your suspected gill problem, I had afun in with flukes years back. That could cause the clamped fins. I will leave a link formeds at the end of this post. I have also found that Discus are a bit finicky when it comes to some meds. Just be careful when using them. I have gone to natural medications like PimaFix and MelaFix. These are to great products and are a natural, herbal remedy.

Here is the link:
http://www.fishforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=252

Good luck.

mike55

i only got Discus fish i have no plants i have pretty good filteration system i change water about every 3 to 4 days not a lot of traffic and the tank is 2ft above, waters pretty old. i had the fish in the tank for about 3 months.