All discus hanging on top surface facing upside-Ref.picture

[discus123]

Dear friends,
From yesterday afternoon all my 13 discus fishes in my 6-foot tank ,are all just hanging up at the top surface of water facing upside in tank as shown in picture below.Why ? any thoughts please ? I have checked the water conditions and seems OK -Ammonia- 0 , PH-6.5 .Temperature-86 F.Any help will be highly appreciated !



Thanks : :cry:

[Bill T.]

Sounds like they are having trouble breathing or you have low oxygen levels in your tank.

Are they gasping or breathing rapidly?
Could there be anything in the water polluting it?
How long since your last water change?
Are you sure your thermometer is working properly? If the water is too hot, there will be less available oxygen.

Try increasing the water turbulence with an airstone for a while. Check the temp. with another thermometer. Do a water change.
Then if they don't pick up, I would be treating them for gill flukes.

[discus123]

I did water change 4 days back.As for oxygen ,I thought my plants would take care of it.However I have just now switched on some airstones .Let us wait and see if Discus feels better.

Thanks

[endless]

if u have spraybars make sure that it is above the water level

[Ben]

It looks like they are short of breath due to lack of O2.

keep us posted but they should be ok.

Some times though when fish are stressed this can lead to secondary problems so keep a close eye on them over the next week, and try and do water changes every second day.

HTH

Ben

[Bill T.]

Relying on plants to provide oxygen is not sufficient.
In any case, plants don't make oxygen at night.
How long have you had the tank set up?
What about nitrate & nitrite levels?

[discus123]

Hi all,
Switching on airstones seems to have made DISCUS happy.You may note the difference in the latest photo attached herewith.So it does look like they had Oxygen problem.My plants were not generating enough oxygen for all the fish I have in Tank.Thanks to all of you -Bill, Ben and endless and also to this Forum sponsors.Hope my problem and solution would also help other new Aquarium owners !

Thanks Again. You guys are Great !

[Merrilyn]

Hello Discus 123 and a very warm welcome to the forum. Glad to see you fish have improved.

One thing to remember about plants, is that although they make oxygen during the day, when strong lights are on, during the night, plants are actually using up oxygen. Because of this, during the night there is actually less available oxygen for fish.

Even the largest aquarium which appears to have plenty of water, and therefore plenty of oxygen, can benefit from having airstones in the water.

[RJ_Archer]

hope all the discus r going A OK

[Bill T.]

Those fish certainly look a lot happier.
I had a similar problem after doing a water change once.
Came home after shopping, only about 1 hour, to find them all at the water surface.
I had accidentally let some air into my filter hoses, so it wasn't pumping.
Once I fixed the problem, my fish were back to normal within minutes.

By the way, since your set up is new, have you wormed your fish? I went through some bad times in the beggining with fish geting sick, behaving oddly, etc. Turns out they had some significant worm infestations which probably came with them from the retailer. Once I treated this, they have gone from strength to strength.

[discus123]

Hi there ,
If we suspect infestation due to worm feeding ,could you please explain what is the best treatment to bring them back to strength / normal ?

Thanks

[Steverd]

Relying on plants to provide oxygen is not sufficient.
In any case, plants don't make oxygen at night.
How long have you had the tank set up?
What about nitrate & nitrite levels?


I haven't used an airstone in my 55gal aquarium in about 2 yrs now.
I have relied on my plants completely for oxygen. The tank is controlled by an automatic CO2/PH controller, and if I used an airstone at night, it would raise my PH from 6.8 to over 7.8+ daily and then the PH would drop back down to 6.8 during the day when the CO2 came back on and the airstone off. I thought the PH swing might be too much for the fish on a daily basis so I stopped using the air stone.
This thread does make me wonder about adding an airstone again..
At least I know what to watch for as signs of low O2.

Photos at:
http://www.steverd.com/temp/plants1.jpg
http://www.steverd.com/temp/plants2.jpg

Steverd

[Bill T.]

Well, you have left me way behind with the CO2 system. I've never used one - my trick is a bit of kH generator which not only stablises the pH at about 7.1, but allows some CO2 for the plants.

I would suggest talkiing with Lady Red about worming your fish.