Tropical Fish Discus Forum Questions Answered!

Please can you give me some advise about that kind of disease or sickness and some kind of medicine I should use for my DISCUS ..

Reply:
Your fish is sick.
Use the medicine can stop spreading this bacterial infection.
Use antibiotic (tetracycline)to treat the fish for 7 days.
Change 50% of the water daily and replace half amount of medicine

After babies disappeared, my male fish attack the female but not too bad (until kill). Now the female discus is scared of male for 4 days goes to corner of tank and stay away from male. But seems like male want to lay eggs but not female . My question is are they still be pair or should I separate and look for another pair?
Now in my pair fish tank I put a round wire mesh and put another fish inside the round mesh and try to make pair back as before.

Reply:
If they have already laid eggs and eaten up the babies, they must be a pair, means 1 male and 1 female. But they are not a good-mated pair. The male is very emotional. When the babies missing, he tried to blame the female then starts fighting. Give them another try.

Next spawning, when you see any one of them starting eating the babies, use the round wire mesh and cage the one eating the babies. They will stop fighting.

Sometimes the fish appears to be in shock. It is usually due to the human error, especially a drastic change of environment. When they are in shock, they will eat the eggs or babies.
Be patient and a bit more observant. You will succeed in your breeding.

How do you traet discus for worms? Could you please tell me the name of the product(s) and if it is dangerous to other species.

Tetra GreenFree UV Clarifiers and Bulbs up to 4400 gallons

Reply:
If the case is not too serious, you can apply antibiotic for five days.
Water changed and same treatment everyday for five days.

When you see white feces are present in the tank, and the fish will not eat then use: Metronidazole B.P. Tablets - 200mg
Dosage: 2 tablets for 50 gallons water.
Change water and repeat the treatment everyday for 5 days.
When white feces disappeared and see black feces, internal parasites cleared.

Well established tank, all chemical balances perfect, all other fish perfect. One snakeskin discus, Naobi, has changed from being the most gorgeous and dominant fish in the tank, to losing her color, her appetite and her dominance. She has a small wound on her body, that looks like an ulcer. She has also started to show shades of black. The fish shop said she probably had worms and that she would die because there was no treatment! A second opinion said it was an ulcer infected with bacteria and gave me sulphur pills to dissolve and add.

Reply:
From the change of behavior and losing color, you know your fish is sick.
First you try applying Acriflavine solution with salt.
Next apply antibiotic (Tetracycline) plus salt for 5 days.

I have another question now after the discus babies swim out from the pole. Male fish start attacking female fish. I didn’t know what to do so I decide to remove male fish from the tank. Is this a right decision. preciate for your answer.

Reply:
Whichever parent eats the babies, she must be removed.
If both the parents fight, cage either one of them in the round plastic net.
Both of them still can take care the babies.

I keep 8 discus in a tank of 4×18x18 but i can not keep my water ph constant i try to keep it around 6.5 but it keeps dropping, how can I stop this happening and keep it constant at around
6.5

Reply:
The pH will drop because of the decay substances.
The dropping of pH is gradual; your fish can take or adjust it.
Regular changing water partially, you will keep your pH constant.

The fish does not look sick to me, they swim around, chasing each other.
Then some time some of the fish look tired stay near the water surface or
swim on the side way then they die.

I think may be I have problem with over feed. I feed then with the blood
worm this is a kind of worm is about 2 inches long, 0.5mm big they live in
water. Most of the fish breeder in Viet Nam use this to feed their fish and
my fish seem to enjoy this kind of worm.

Reply:
If they die after changing water, then you must watch out for chlorine.
They might be dying due to suffocating. Worm of two inches in length is
too long. You can chop them to small pieces then feed them.

Can you have other cichlids with Discus?

Reply:
Although they belong to same cichlid family, but they are different in sizes and some are very aggressive. I think the discus fish are not happy with them.

One of my female discus is laying the egg so that I put one discus I think this is a male with the female together. When the female lays second time the male eat all the egg instead of fertilized them. Female lay one egg and the male eat one egg. Why? Will it become parents. Should I wait or not? Can i paired the female with another one?

Reply:
The one discus you put in could be a female.
If it is a male, then he must be not ready or inexperience.
Put a few adult fish together and allow them to pair up by themselves.
They prefer to select their own partner.

How to feed the baby discus daily?

Reply:
For the first ten days, while the babies stick around the parents, you need
not feed them. The babies are getting food from the parents.

Starting from the third week, on the 15th day, you can feed them with brine
shrimp or artemia everyday.

Another week later, you can feed them daphnia and then worm.

Please tell me the procedure and the medicine to perform the deworming my discus fish.My fish are a regular habitant of live foods like BLOOD WORM and TUBERFLEX.

Reply:
When you see white feces are present in the tank, and the fish will not eat
then use:

Metronidazole B.P. Tablets - 200mg
Dosage: 2 tablets for 50 gallons water.

Change water and repeat the treatment everyday for 5 days.
When white feces disappeared and see black feces, internal parasites cleared

Do longfins breed true? ifnot do any of the offspring have longfins? how did they get theyre longfins?Are they hormone treated?

Reply:
The long-fin discus breed true. The offspring have long fins.
They are not hormone treated then become long fin.
After 5 generations of selective breeding then only get this long-fin strain.