Water Change Question: Suddenly lost a helathy discus

[dntx5b9]

Just lost a very healthy discus. He was 4"+ and had him since March this year. One day during a water change, this guy was kinda struggling to swim upright on top of the water and seemed like having a seizure, almost. After that, he turned pale with dark stress bar displaying when he was swiming around. When he was just standing still, he looked fine. He would dart around a bit in the tank, but nothing crazy. I have seen in the past my other discus did that, it was nuts. :shock: He looked like he was going to be OK, then a week later during another water change, he was doing the same thing and then a day later he died.

I do about 25% water changes everyday or every other day. Once a week or so, I do about 50% water change. Both times when I noticed this was when I was doing bigger water changes. I do not age the water, I just fill the tank straight from the tap. I added the dechlorinator as the tank is being filled. I feel the water to make sure that the temp is roughly the same.

I can only imagine that this incident was caused by something during the water change. Any thoughts? I have 6 other discus in the tank and many other fish and they are all fine. Any comments would be greatly appreciated.

[Mitch]

If you have got the space you should try and age your water for at least a day. You say you add water straight form the tap, then add de chlorinator to the tank. Its allways safer to add the dechlorinator to the bucket or barrel of water before filling the tank, you will also need to use less dechlorinator useing this method as to having to add enough to treat your whole tank. Also how are you heating the water for the change? You should never use water straight from your hot tap, as once hot water heaters are more than a year old they have a sludge deposit at the bottom of the tank which is bad forhumans to evan drink. Hope i have helped you in some way.

[ILLUSN]

does your dechlorinater also remove chloroamine and ammonia?

if not get yourself some prime and use that if you cant age water.

was proably a combination on tempreture & Ph shock combined with some nasties in the water.

[samir]

chlorine poisoning

[dntx5b9]

If it was chlorine poisoning, then how come only one fish was effected? I would think other fish would display similar symptons...

[dntx5b9]

If it was chlorine poisoning, then how come only one fish was effected? I would think other fish would display similar symptons...

Has anyone experienced chlorine poisoning with their discus during the water change? I am not trying to dispute the diagnosis. I am trying to understand more about it. I am also trying to figure out if this could be attributed to other things. I did get prime. So, I am using that exclusively for the discus tank.

[ILLUSN]

it's happened to me before, when i first got strarted, i always lost the weakest fish, i believe it was a combination of chlorine poisoining and temp/ph shock

[dntx5b9]

it's happened to me before, when i first got strarted, i always lost the weakest fish, i believe it was a combination of chlorine poisoining and temp/ph shock

May be mine could be chlorine poisoning, but certainly not temp/ph shock. I use warm water out of the tap (which I suppose could potentially be a problem) and I do not do anything to the water to change the ph, so the tank ph and tap ph should be the same. Hopefully, using enough Prime during the water change will prevent this from happening in the future...

[Greggy]

Don't use any water from the 'hot water' tap as it usually contains alot of Copper.

Buy a large 75L + plastic bucket and put your new water in it, if requiredd warm it with a spare aquarium heater for a few hours, and add Prime to remove Chlorine and Chloramine etc. Then pump it into your tank with a strong powerhead and some 19mm hose.

Adding water straight to the tank from the hot & cold water taps is really asking for trouble IMO.

Regards,

Greggy

[ILLUSN]

Greggy is 100% correct, if you look at your shower head you'll see a slight green tinge to the carbonate buildup, that copper from your pipes.

If you put hot water into your tank your adding copper.

Prime will lock up heavy metals including copper, but you'll have to age it overnight atleast to get it out of the water.

[Nandu]

Hello

On this subject I also wish to add a question, if at all the water parameter changes why does it happen that only one fish is impacted...in that case the problem should have had been for all...

Secondly this fish was with the owner since march, so I presume that this practice of water change was prevelant in March too, then what could have had happened, the fish died after 8 months time...as by this time he should have been adapted to the environment..

I am sorry, but this is common thing that I have noticed, all other things remain unchange, suddenly one fish falls sick and dies on us...is it something like a slow poison which affets after 3 to 4 monts till that time the fish seems to be happy...as in human, certain deseases are not detected initially it comes out only when it's too late...has it to do with "aquired immunity" in fish that keeps fighting and once that is gone the small change causes the fish to die...more over, should this be taken as alarm that other fishes in the tank are also at danger and we need to do something. Presently they would be looking fine but in reality damaged from within and waiting for there dooms day. I completely agree with regards to adding heated water to the tank from heater and that would be cause for the fishes being in this state...

What do we call such a sickness, with parasite we can see the white poo(droping) but when there are no symptoms how can we be alert and save our fish..

regards

Nandu

[Greggy]

Good points Nandu... Its quite difficult to know if a Discus is really ok (healthy) or if its close to succumbing to a build up of poisons and parasites over the last several months. I mean it might still eat and swim around 'normally' but if you could ask it how does it feel and get an answer, it might say "I feel like I'm about to die!".

And just because someone says "Only one of my fish died and all the others are fine so it cannot be my water" does not mean there is nothing wrong with their water! That a fish has died at all tells me something is wrong! Maybe it was the fish, but I doubt it. Its usually something wrong with the water that caused the death, or the poor water quality in conjunction with things like poisons and parasites that lead to a death. Fish (like most vertebrates) are quite highly developed (like us) and just don't die for no reason, well not often anyway. Remember we are not talking about bacteria here!

Discus do seem to be able to tolerate alot of poor husbandry and other problems (thankfully for people like me!!!!) but they are not miracle fish that can live through anything we throw at them. Some situations happen that take them out very fast, and I would say Chlorine & Chloramine is high on that list. Close to these is NH4 and NO2. Copper in the aquarium is very much a 'loose cannon' and although you can add litres of Copper Sulphate to one aquarium and not seemingly have any problems just a small amount added to another aquarium can cause massive wipe outs of fish. Why? Because copper behaves very differently in soft & hard water, where soft water & copper cause a very deadly situation to arise as the copper ions go on the warpath with virtually every organic molecule they meet.

Almost always the weakest fish of a group will die first if all of them are exposed to water quality problems, poisons or wrong conditions such as temp etc - everyone understands this as its an easy concept to grasp. I just hope people keep an open mind when attempting to trouble-shoot their own Discus & fish keeping problems and don't dismiss situations that could very well be the cause of their problems.

I'm still leaning towards a combination of copper and/or Chlorine/Chloramine that lead to the loss of a Discus in this thread.

Regards,

Greggy

[dwilder]

just wanted to add that ageing water is important but will not help if you have high enough levels of copper to effect the fish

[dntx5b9]

I seriously doubt copper is the issue. The hot water does not sit long enough in the heater and pipes to raise the copper level, if at all. Plus, the water conditioner is supposed to detoxify the heavy metals. Chlorine/chloromine and even ammonia poisoning could have been the reason. Anyhow, after I started using Prime, my fish actually seem more active and happier. I will keep using Prime and see how things go.

[Mitch]

You seriously shouldn't use water out of your hot tap. Irrlevent of weather you think the water dosen't sit in the pipes long enough to raise copper levels both cold and hot water contain copper. They get this from traveling at high pressure through the pipes and wearing away at the copper, hot is always going to be higher as it sits in a copper lines hot water storage tank. None of this maters that much as it will be removed by Prime, It's the discusting sludge in the bootom of the tank. Im a plumber and replace hot water tanks all the time and i wouldn't let anyone i know drink from the hot tap. Your not just asking for trouble, your going to constantly get it. Buy a cheap $25 heater.

[dntx5b9]

Apprecite all the comments on hot water. Storing and aging water is pretty much out of the question. So my only option is using water straight from the tap in to the tank. I need to use the hot water from the tap due to extremely cold water during winter here. Otherwise, the tank temp will drop significantly for 25% water changes. I will try to make the water warm enough not to drop the temp too much rather than trying to match or put warmer water in the tank. Also, using Prime seems to help as well. Will keep monitoring and see how things go.