HELP-Boyfriend out of town, NO CLUE WHAT TO DO WITH DISCUS

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number1sixerfan

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Sep 11, 2006
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My went out of town for 2 weeks and left me in care of his discus and I came home from work and 6 of the 8 are dead. I'm changing the water now, in hopes that the two that are alive will make it, but i don't even know what happened to make the others die. They were redish looking now they're brown. There was an automatic fish feeder attached to the tank, it fell in and when I tried to get it out with the net, food spilled all over the bottom of the tank. What should I do to keep these too alive?
 

Rbishop

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Do you know how to gravel vac the substrate or sand?
 

msjinkzd

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do you know how to gravel vac? try and remove as much as the spilled food as possible and the water change will help. Its likely the food is causing ammonia to build up in the water, poisoning the discus. the water changes will dilute the ammonia, making it less toxic to the discus.


Also make sure to remove the deceased fish.
 

number1sixerfan

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okay. so i used the vac and it got up a lot of it, but there's still tiny particles at the bottom of the tank. Should I do two water changes?
 

msjinkzd

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I would do as many as you can to remove the bulk of the food. Just be careful to dechlorinate the water and temp match as closely as possible.
 

number1sixerfan

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ok. thanks. He said they need to be fed 5 x a day, but since the automatic fish feeder is certainly broken now, will they be okay since i work 8 hour days?
 

number1sixerfan

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also, he uses this freshwater kit to test the water. I'd like to do that, but am not sure what to check for. The kit has pH, Ammonia, nitrate and nitrite solution bottles. Should I check for all or some?
 

msjinkzd

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You would want to test for nitrite and ammonia. If either of those are reading, it means the water is toxic. Do the best you can with feeding.. I don't actually keep discus, so I can't chime in on the feeding needs as well.
 

Rbishop

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What size tank, and how old are the discus..juvies?
 

number1sixerfan

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I think it's 72 gallons. And I'm not 100% sure of how old they are, but he mentioned that once they get bigger he's going to move them to a different tank. I'm guessing they're babies.
 
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