AMMONIA CRISIS - Please advise

[OfPirateMind]

I'll summarize.

I have 3 (well 2 now) discus (4" and 6") in a 50 gallon tank. On Monday I noticed they stopped eating. Water was fine(PH 6.8 ammonia at 0 and temp 82 degrees). I try to keep the water flow from the filter low so they wont stress.
My husband tried to over compensate their lack of appetite by adding large chunks of BH for them to munch, the water flow remained low and he did not vacuum the leftovers. This morning I noticed them hanging out at the top and noticed all the rotting food! I immediately took it out with the net and vacuumed the left overs which naturally raises all kinds of cloudiness. I tested the water and ammonia was at 6.0! temp and ph were the same. Don't remember what nitrates reading was because I panicked at the sight of 6.0. I didn't want to add tap water because the ph is very high and would have raised the PH and ammonia even more so i added some ammo-lock to hold them over until hubby could bring home filtered water (has a lower PH) when he came home from work a couple of hours later.
Well when that happened one was dead and the others were black, gasping looked last rites ready, so i ran to the kitchen grabbed a bucket and put them in tap water (treated of course) it's been a couple of hours and their color is back and they are starting to swim.

My question is what should I do now? The bucket's PH is about 7.4. we're emptying the tank as I type and will replace it with filtered water. I can't leave them in the bucket as there's no heater (or can I?). I'm afraid the PH instability will shock them even more. I'm currently cycling a 30 gallon tank but I just set it up on Sunday and the readings are low but there's no heater up there and I don't want our current heater to crack because of the difference in water temp.

Any advice is greatly appreciated, I promise I'll introduce myself later!

[ILLUSN]

A swing of less then 1 degree wont hurt them at all drain and fill your tank and pop them back in i suggest ramping up your filtration a little you shouldn't have that much ammonia after a day.

try and get a flow rate of atleast 150gal/hour (3x your tanks volume)

[OfPirateMind]

Thanks for advise, the temperature was a lot cooler in the bucket than they're used to but I had to choose the lesser of two evils.

Update:

I changed 100% of water, washed the canister, filled it with carbon and ammo-chips, raised the temperature to 88F, PH is at 7.0, added 2 doses of ammo-lock before putting the fish back in and it has remained at 0.50. After putting them in they stated at the bottom and I went to bed cause it was 1:30am and I was done.

This morning DB ("Dull Boy", yes my fish have names) and PJ ("Pride and Joy") regained their coloring. DB is back to normal breathing and swimming as usual. PJ however, is in the top corner nose to the surface and gasping for air at times I can see the stress bands. I'm not sure if she's taking longer to recoup or what. Also, I don't know if I should start feeding because I'm guessing they haven't eaten in like 3 days, maybe it's weakness?

[Hollowman]

Add a couple of airstones, maybe this fish is gasping for lack of oxygen.

I am jst worried about you cleaning out the cannister, how did you do this? I hope you just rinced it in tank water and not nuked it of all the helpful bacteria.

Only feed lightly until you 'know' you do not have a recurrence of ammonia. Discus can go without for quite a while so do not panic just yet. You can try to tempt them with bloodworm, normally a favorite.

hth

H

[OfPirateMind]

I blasted the air pump so PJ's gasping a less now, although one of her cheeks looks sunken in (think she' sulking at me?).

I only gave the canister a quick rinse under the faucet to remove anything with chunks in it, no scrubbing or anything, I just wanted to get rid of anything visible that might deteriorate the new water, I didn't use tank water because I felt it to be too high in ammonia to really help me. I didn't vacuum the gravel completely so it's not squeaky clean, and I'm hoping the resulting bloom won't be major.

[Hollowman]

ok, good to know the gasping is getting better.

If it were me, I would ditch the gravel. It will always harbour rotting food, specially if you over feed (or your hubby does) and you do not do regular deep vacs. Sand is a far better option as food sits on the surface and can be vaced easily after a feed.

Do you have any photos, it would be interesting to see your set up fro more accurate advice

Steve

[TW]

I only gave the canister a quick rinse under the faucetYou should only use old tank water to rise the cannister & any filter media. The water from tap is likely to kill off the beneficial bacteria.