# Need Urgent Discus Help



## DD4611 (Jul 5, 2012)

I have been raising discus for almost a year now with no problems until now. The past few weeks right after doing water changes in my 3 tanks within several hours I suddently have fish trying to jump out of the tanks and suddenly dying. I have done water changes and http://www.aquariumforum.com/images/smilies/fish-in-bowl.gifeverything is fine. Checked water hardness, checked PH no other changes. I have well water and live in the mountains. Our water has always been perfect until now. I have recently tried treating my fish with Metro per Aquarium store advice and it seemed to help a little but not really. I clean the tanks daily and add water at least once per week, replacing about 20 to 30 percent. I even had my sucker fish die suddenly. I run all tanks with 2 sponge filters each and one tank even has a top side filter with no carbon, just more sponge filters. Please help!! I have lost to date 5 - 4 to 5 inch discus that I raised from 2 inch size. What can I do?? Thanks in advance:fish-in-bowl:


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## jrman83 (Jul 9, 2010)

Test the water for ammonia? I have well water also and have had at least once where it had 2ppm ammonia in it. Didn't last long, but it happened. Common thing actually - for wells.


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## WhiteGloveAquatics (Sep 3, 2009)

There can be too many variables with well water even down to ground water contamination. I keep those flat fish as well(got 2 dozen of em in a display tank) and know all to well at how quickly they can go from being graceful to being dead.

I wish you luck but I would really focus your attention on the well water and the possibilities of something contaminating it. How often do you clean the sponges? and with just sponges you need to do daily water changes on those tanks, ive seen mine get rough and hit the sponge and cause alot of muck to get back into the water column.


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## navigator black (Jan 3, 2012)

A key element missing is the size of the tank, and how many fish were in it. I breed fish and have often hit a wall when they sold slowly. You may be there with Discus that began small and now reached a size where they overwhelm your regime and filtration.
It's not uncommon when you breed delicate cichlid species for them to grow steadily, and then die out overnight. Invariably, they have closed in on sexual maturity, which adds the stress of awakening hierarchical behavior to the stress their larger body size and higher waste output hits the water with.
I find that for the healthy and easy maintenance of 5 inch discus (40% water changes weekly, as opposed to twice a week or more) you need 20 gallons per fish.
I know others stock more highly, but they likely maintain more too. I no longer keep wild discus, as they were a lot of work for a fish that didn't get me, but I did have two colonies of them for a combined 6-7 years, and the 20 gallons per fish rule is what I arrived at.


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## DD4611 (Jul 5, 2012)

Thank you for your response to my request. I have 3 - 55 gal tanks. The one with the dying fish only had 2 discus in it and a few cardinals. Also had a sucker fish. Within minutes I lost the sucker fish, a tetra and the discus. A few weeks ago I lost 4 discus from 2 different tanks. I am thinking that it may be my well water. Although I have never had a problem until now, I am going to have my water tested in town. It just is strange that it is not affecting the younger fish, just the larger ones. It's almost like they can't breath or something. I just don't get it.


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## majerah1 (Oct 29, 2010)

Darting to the surface and trying to escape tells me the oxygen is depleting.Usually a dramatic drop in ph or a rapid raise in ammonia.Other than that Im at a loss,its definatly something in the water bugging them to the point they want out of it.

I would get a master test kit,and check your PH ammonia nitrates,nitrites as well as get it checked for heavy metals and such.


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## navigator black (Jan 3, 2012)

Okay, so the stocking was good. Hmmm. When adult fish die and juveniles survive, I always look to oxygen. It`s a shipping phenomenon - the larger the fish, the harder to ship, always because of O2.
The deaths were fast, so it had to be catastrophic, whatever it was. It may not show up in tests or it would be a continual killer. I think the question drifts away from a fish one into a well one. Urban dwellers like me become useless here - never had to look into the workings of wells.


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