breeding pair dying

[ramonrodrigues]

I have a 220 L tank that has 7 discus and a variety of communial tetras.
I dont really know how old the discus are but 2 of them have paired up and laid some eggs on my intake filter tube. This was totally unexpected as I am totally inexperienced at breeding fish. I decided to move the eggs and parents to another tank. I set up a 50L tank with an air blown filter and kept the temp at about 28 degrees Celcius. ( my parameters in the 220L tank are all good, ph 6.8, temp 27.)
The eggs had hatched in the 220 L tank b4 I moved them across to the 50L and the fry were still attached to the filter intake.
The parents were taking good care of them by gathering the fry and putting them back on the filter if they wriggled away. All this was at about 8pm. At about 10-11 pm the parents looked like they were breathing very heavily and rapidly. I put an extra air stone in to up the 02 and at about 6 am the next morning the were lying on their side still breathing heavily.
The fry were still Ok. I put the parents back into the220 L and they dont eem to have changed much in that hour.
I am now at work and when I get back will check the water parameters in the 50L tank (the water here was taken from the 220 L tank originally)
I hope they survive. Any help as to why this happened and prevention or any info would be appreciated.
Thanks.

[Bill T.]

I was wonderring if the 50L. tank was properly cylced - although I suppose the small fry would have been affected by now also.
Possibly your fish have panicked in their new environment & dashed about. In which case they may have bruised themselves by hitting objects in the tank, or even hitting the glass. Discus fish have a habit of doing this when they are spooked.
Hope they make a good recovery.

[samir]

it seems like some kind of water issue, did you add anything to the water ?. cycle tank properly? try doing a 40% water change in your large tank for the next few days. you could also filter the tank water with some activated charcoal.hope that fixes it.

[ramonrodrigues]

The 50 L tank was not cycled, it just had water transfered from the 220 L.
Tested the 50 L water parameters and all was OK last night.
One of them had died this morning and I am quite sure the other will follow when I get home.
The remaining fry in the 50L is still alive but I dont think they will survive to long without the parents.
Its a sad loss but I am looking forward to trying to breed again once I get a lot more info from this site.
Thanks for all the help.

[Bill T.]

I supppose it is possible these fish had something wrong for a while, but not apparent. The trauma of moving may have then pushed them over the edge - although you would think they would not put down eggs if they were ailing.
Sorry to hear about your loss. It may be you never discover why.

[Merrilyn]

Sorry to hear about the loss of your fish Ramon. It's always sad whne we lose fish, and even more so when we don't know the reasons.

I'm thinking that there must have been something in your small tank that affected the parents. For them to be alright at 8pm and blowing their fry back onto the pipe, then 2 hours later, breathing hard, and a few hours after that lying on their sides, means it has to be the water or something in the water.

Now, we can eliminate the water, because it came from your 220 litre tank, so it was definately something in the tank that contaminated the water.

Did you thoroughly clean the smaller tank before you put the water in there, and what did you use to clean the tank? Is it possible there could have been some residue of detergent or soap in the tank? What about the sponge filter. Was that a new one or an old one, and did you rinse it thoroughly. How did you clean it before it went in the tank?

Did you add anything else to the water, like salt or conditioners? Anything different that you added to this tank?

Did anyone use any fly spray or other sprays near or around the tank. Could you have had something on your hands before you put them in the water?

Think back over everything you did. I'm sure you'll find that somehow a contaminant entered the water and poisoned your fish.

Before you use that tank again, empty the water out and refill it with clean water with plain chlorine bleach. Buy the one WITHOUT detergent added, usually the cheapest one on the shelf. The bleach will sterilize everything, so add your heater, sponge filter nets and anything else you may have used and let it all soak in the bleach solution for 24 hours.

After that time, rinse everything thoroughly with clean tap water until you can't smell any trace of chlorine, then leave everything out in the sun for a couple of days. Set up the tank again, and add a couple of test fish, like tetras or guppies, before you add any of your precious discus again.

HTH

[ramonrodrigues]

Thanks for the replies, The only new thing that was added to the 50L tank was a new air blown filtrationn system ( the one with a sponge around it).
I am quite sure that is what did it. I did not wash it AT ALL.
An unfortunate lesson learnt.
I will steralize all equipment and start the tank up again, this time with a lot more care.
Thanks again to everyone for all the quick responses.

[Waldo]

Stress induced laying isn't uncommon. Often parameter changes are the cause for laying. During the rainy season water levels rise as do the oxygen levels while pH and temperature drops. This is also the time when fry will receive the most area to find shelter. Guppies can hold fry for quite some time and can even die because the fry are too large to come out and damage the organs.