Discus Fish Sudden Death (different Tank)

Hey everyone. One of the discus just passed away today. He was about a year old and we had him for about 4 months. The tank is a 54g with 15 angle fish and 1 other discus and 2 bristle nose plecos. Today he had symptoms of sitting at the bottom of the tank and swimming a little bit sideways with no obvious wounds but this is the first day he did this with no other symptoms any other day and passed away today. Every week there is a 50% water change and we did one yesterday. All the other fish are healthy and well.

Temperature: 82

Ph: 7.2

Ammonia: 0ppm
Nitrite: 0ppm
Nitrate: 20ppm

 

15 adult Angels? 82 is a little cold for Discus, they’re also schooling fish. Do you know your GH and your KH? If not, I’d suggest getting a test kit. If your water is too hard, they won’t do well in the long run. You should be doing more water changes with your stock, and especially with Discus.

 

Yes sounds good and will get the gh and kh test kit. Maybe 50% water changes 3 or 2 times a week. Thanks!

 

Are the angels adults?

 

Yes most of them are full grown

 

That’s a lot of fish in a 54, its possible that contributed to the Discus.

 

Water changes
Your nitrates should stay under 10ppm for discus. I like to keep mine at 0-5ppm at all times. I use live plants, enough to process the bioload amount in between water changes. Floating plants like water lettuce are great, or even pothos growing emersed. But the way to get them down immediately is via changing water.
(Assuming your source water doesn't register nitrates). If you cannot keep the nitrates down, you are overstocked. Tbh, that really is A LOT of angelfish in a 45g. I'm surprised you are able to keep the nitrates at 20ppm with a weekly 50% WC. Is your tank heavily planted? How do the angelfish act?

After nitrates are balanced, so in tanks where typically the plants use up nitrates faster than the fish produce, I go by Total Dissolved Solids. When TDS gets to be 50ppm higher than my tap water, I change out enough to bring it down to where I want it for softwater fish. (I like 100ppm or less). Discus are much more sensitive to conditions and parameters than your other fish including the angels. The other fish can adjust the params slightly out of their norm. The discus line the temperature high, the BN plecos like it cooler.

Also keeping discus with angelfish is not advised, especially in a smaller tank I'm so sorry your discus dropped off, but they are very sensitive schooling fish that your tank can't really accommodate the way it is

 

Thanks for your help and there is a bunch of duckweed in their I know there is a lot of fish in there because the parents bred and had a lot of fry in their. And there will be more water changes every week thanks again