giving up

[dismatt]

think im going to give up on discus doesnt mater what i do somthing gos wrong stresses me out to much, have two discus sick at the moment one with white mucus over its body and the other stays in the cornor of the tank and just sits there, maybe i need some ideas on tank setup and what equipment to have. :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry:

[wyldchyld01]

hey,

don't give up yet, give us an idea of your water conds etc maybe someone can help

brenton

[DR.V]

re-think about giving up discus. I mean its a great hobby. Maybe theres something wrong with your water parameter and eqiupment. Think this way, if other people can keep discus with success, why cant you? right ? im sure other member here can help with your sick discus.

[chris]

Yer mate stick in there go back to basics.
Starting with Tank size properly cycling tanks filtration water changes the list goes on.
Everyone would help step by step.

[Merrilyn]

Hey Matt, I'm gonna PM you my phone number. You can ring me if you likie and we will see if I can sort something out for you.

[the_oracle]

Matt,
With people like them, you wanna give up so easily? There are lots of helpful people in here, I'm sure they can easily solve your problem. Think again mate. You'll regret it.


Sanie.

[Tryhard]

don't give up mate - It is always darkest before dawn. If I gave up after the amount of Discus I have lost due to my own ignorance well I wouldn't be posting this !!!!!!!!!!! but be guided what you read in this forum and try again. Once you get the hang of it then you will wonder what you were worried about.

[goldenpigeon]

DONT GIVE UP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

we all make mistakes and they happen to every1!!!!!! u have to crawl (spelling) before u can walk! i have been keeping discus for 4 years now and have only just recently made a small mistake after over 18 months of nothing but pure success!

what i think you should to is first of all post in illness and medication your problem and we can help u there. after that you need to go right back to the very basics. what is your water straight out of the tap like? 1 mastake i think almost every1 has made is trying to fiddle with the water to make it perfect! EG: if the ph is 7.2 unless they are unhappy DONT WORRY ABOUT IT!!!!! the worst thing u can do is keep on changing the water parametres.

also 1 thing i would like to suggest to beginners is to get a large tank and stock it VERY lightly!!!!! then while u are still learning there is a very small likely hood of there being anything like an ammonia spike. our eyes decieve use and we look at all the water and think that there is a mountain of room for more fish when there actually isnt.

PLZ DONT GIVE UP!!! try and get your fish sorted out and go from there AND DONT BE AFRAID TO ASK IF U HAVE ANY SUSSPICION OR EVEN A QUESTION THAT U THINK MIGHT B A DUMB TO ASK BECAUSE IT COULD BE VITAL!!!!!

[dismatt]

thanks everyone for you help i wont give up my tank is a 200lt it has two small discus and two lrg the ones that are sick are the lrg ones been in the tank two weeks the filter is an eheim 2215 also have an airstone and eheim internal filter temp is 30 wayter condition is ph 7 nitrite o.1 mg ammonia 0ppm base of tank is sand rocks only 3 are coral peices and plants are fake every thing else in the tank is fine being clown loachs 2 tetras 7 a pictus catfish very small and 1 small ghost knife fish, hope you can help me i appriciate all your advice :D :D

[dismatt]

sorry temp was 27.8 now 30 :lol:

[goldenpigeon]

i also forgot to tell you:

while your fish are sick you need to slowly lower your ph down to atleast 6.0 DONT PANIC as i said SLOWLY!!!! lower is better. while the ph is so low 2 things will happen:

1. below a ph of 7.0 ammonia turns into ammonite (i cant remember what it is called). ammonia is 10 times more toxic than its form below 7.0!!!! this is why the ph must be quite low!!!!! so while they are ill they are succeptible to the toxicity of the water (as i said before i think the slime coat is burnt off of them). so try and keep it low if possible

2. with a ph so low the bacteria in the filter will start to die off! this will be a bit of a problem in the longrun. however there is a product called aqua cycle and it is made by science products. this product will restart your bacteria colony again. use the aqua cycle after you have completed the triple-sulfa course and you have brought the ph up again.



now i have just thought of something:

have u bin using ph down to lower the ph?

the coral has stopped the ph from going down and there might be a build up of ph down in there. if so it will bomb the tank after the coral is taken out and we have a problem.

do the 50% w/c and make sure you get the triple-sulfa!!!! if possible get the other fish into a different tank especially the black ghost knife fish because it is a scaleless fish.

it is imperative that you test the ph at least 4 times a day and if you notice any changes POST IT STRAIGHT AWAY!!!!!!!!!!


hope this helps!!!! :)

[goldenpigeon]

sorry ment to post that in dismatts "help" thread. sorry for any confusion :D

[DR.V]

you see how many people are willing to help u ?? Good luck with your fish, are they getting better ??

[Fishpimpin73]

Ok.......

Let me tell you a story.

About a year and a half ago, something, blew through our fishroom.
We are still not sure what it was, the water comapnies were playing with a new additive at the time and that could have been the culprit.
But as it is we'll never know.

We lost just about everything.

Nothing we did was working.

We even went and bought all the tetracyclene that we could find, and not even it helped.

We spent months on a losing streak.
It got to the point where we were down to maybe a dozen fish out of hundreds.

And we were ready to just walk away from the whole mess.

Luckily we belonged to a forum much like this and TONS of people talked us into keeping with it.

Sometimes things just "happen".

But that doesn't mean that we just quit trying and give up:wink:

For some of us, this thing is more than just a hobby.
We are here to help support you in any way that we can.

If we put our heads together there is nothing that we can't figure out :wink:

[ctvu]

Hi Dismatt

How are they going now? pls keep us upaded.
And you got all our supports

ctvu

[rytis]

think im going to give up on discus doesnt mater what i do somthing gos wrong stresses me out to much, have two discus sick at the moment one with white mucus over its body and the other stays in the cornor of the tank and just sits there, maybe i need some ideas on tank setup and what equipment to have. :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry:

now i can relate to that (5 months ago) yep, i was just where you were.... i kept buying them one by one at lfs for $10 each and they didnt look healthy to begin with, that's #1. then i gave up then i built my own powerful filter so that intake tube is stretching thru out most of the back with small holes (pvc pipe) so as to clean a wider area....

tried one more discus just for thehell of it, was almost positive hell slowly die just the same.... he didnt, sofew weeks later i ordered4, then 4 more, then bought 1 more at lfs, still got them all living nicely... it's not just water changes, need good filter... also important is dont have any molies/livebarers there - thats another change that contributed to my success...small molie fry which i thought would be discus food, ate my discus away 5-6 months ago... just so u know...

[marg]

rytis where are you from, and how long have you had Discus?

[Benny]

Junior what does Triple sulfa do??

I think u meant the ammonia becomes amonium (NH3 rather then NH4, or vice versa i cant remember lol)

Also, what strikes me as alarming is that you have a readding of nitrite...

My tests always come up at zero.. Have you done anything to the filter of late? have u removed any gravel or anything,???

Im sure you will pull thru,
Best of luck

[Bill T.]

I agree with all the encouragement so far. I had huge difficulties keeping my Discuss alive - heartwrenching stuff- but after some very useful advice and probably good luck, things have settled down.
My two favourites that I got when they were very small nearly died a few times - now they are more than 12 months old and going strong.

Hints:
Good stock.
Quarantine new fish.
Discipline - regular water changes.
Don't over feed.
Daily water chemistry checks untill all settles down, then go to weekly.
A good quality U.V. steriliser.
If you must clean your eheim filter, use aquarium water, not tap water.
Treat for flukes, worms and other internal parasites (I have some magic I might be willing to sahre with you) - once I got these under control, most of my problems went away.

Good Luck.

[mcloughlin2]

Im at the same point as u dismatt ... did my reasarch for a prolly nearly two months , joined this site bought books , searched the web i did everything i thought was going to help me ...

So i bought my first lot of discus just over a month ago , they were going fine eating well and everything ... so i decided to get some more so i went to SLS ... i got 3 discus from them .... :)

Took them home and put them in the tank with the others as i didnt have a spare tank at the time ... they were ok till that night i noticed the 3 i got from SLS tails were rotting away ... :?

The next morning they were worse so i posted on this site and some others , called SLS did everything ... tried a bunch of treatments but i lost 3 of my 7 discus ... out of the remaining 4 one has no eyes , 1 has one eye and the other two were ok ... :(

They started to look better so i thought they might survive but this morning woke up and they have all the white slime on them again and they r breathing heavy ... got some more medication today but they are not looking good ... :cry:

I have followed george from SLS advice step by step but they are not getting better ....

They have been sick for about a month now and all the medicine is costing alot ... i havent given up hope yet ... my mum is convincing me not to give up ... but i dont know wat to do ... i guess it will have to be luck that saves my discus .... :cry:

Hope all turns out good for u dismatt and sorry for taking up ur thread i just thought i would let u know u are not the only with doubts ... :(

Sam ...

[sammigold]

Hey dismatt and Mcloughlin, Fish in general tend to be quite a stressful hobby. (although people say how relaxing fish are they usually aren't the ones trying to recreate biotopes and watching for any little sign of a problem) Most of us will learn from our mistakes over time and it just happens to be a very unfortunate fact that sometimes we will lose our beloved fish. I have just started with discus 4 months ago as well and I have been a little luckier than you but not without my own sick discus. I am lucky enough to be able to say I think he/she is ok but I am still watching like a hawk. Years ago when I first started keeping fish I bought one new fish into my tank and it had some sort of bacterial disease and it wiped out nearly our whole tank. We thought we would give up but then we thought about the joy and satisfaction we feel when things go well and decided to try again. We started all over again, totally scrubbed the tank down along with all things and recycled it and then bought a new selection of fish. anyway what I am trying to say is, that sometimes you may feel disheartened but there are people to help and once you do solve your probs. you will feel complete satisfaction that you were able to get through this patch and be able to enjoy one of the most beautiful fish around. Good luck. Keep us posted

[bgi]

Ok.......

Let me tell you a story.

About a year and a half ago, something, blew through our fishroom.
We are still not sure what it was, the water comapnies were playing with a new additive at the time and that could have been the culprit.
But as it is we'll never know.
...[deleted]...

Chloramines? Did you ask the water company?

[foo]

Hi Mclouchlin2,

Its always sad to hear of a hobbyist in dispare. I know how it feels to see ur pet suffer with a plague like fin rot or discus plague.

Its heart wrenching. Well, my mate helped me out although unable to safe 3 out of the 4... it was still a success for having that last survivor and now doing very well.

We used a medication called Aqua- Cycline from AquaMasters. But we used it as a last resort. Also use the medication to make sure ur gravel, filter, plants and basically anything in the aquarium is disinfected.

I cleaned my aquarium and flushed it out and cycled it 2 again for a week running the medication through during the first cycle.

I took the fish out and seperated them by species, therefore, severums with severums and discus with discus.

Unfortunately 3 of the discus died only 1 left standing but wounded after the 2 day. The severums were doing fine after the treatment.

Now, they are eating from my hands again after a week and half after treatment. Please dont give up.. its an ugly sight seeing the discus suffer but giving up will have already killed them...

i really hope that helps.. im just a beginner but maybe my experience can help yours too.

Good luck dude.

Pete

[mistakes r crucial]

Mistakes are crucial but persist and you will get there, take it from one that has made quite a few.
MAC

[G-1000]

Dont give up on it mate.

You learn from what has happened this time around and apply your knowledge to next time. It is a setback, but you know so much it would be a shame to walk away from it all. Don't give up the discus hobby as I am sure that would hurt more than the discus itself. You have an oppurtunity to start with fresh and new discus - regardless of what happened before, I would go for it.

G