Help with sick discus

[lesleycathcart]

My fish has been looking ill for a few days. Dull colour and hanging around the top of the tank. I have changed the water and added rock salt. Yesterday he appeared to be improving. His colour was much better. But now he is floating upside down at the bottom of the tank.

[CassieLEO]

Ok, so fish floating upside down isnt good. That im sure you know. What are your tank parameters? Any changes? Any other sick fish? How was he acting? What size tank and filter do you have? What are you feeding them?

[Lady Hobbs]

Floating upside down is not a sign of improvement. Discus must have pristine water. Him remaining at the top of the tank appears to me he was lacking in oxygen. Sounds to me as he is in an uncycled tank and probably is dying of toxic water.

[lesleycathcart]

He has been in the same tank since he was small, 5-6 years. Tank is triangular in shap, 750cm (29 1/2") high 740cm (29") wide and 440cm (17") deep. I have never tested the Ph so don't know what is it but have always kept the water clean with regular changes and add rock salt and some bicarb. The tank has a good filtration system, a filter tank that sits underneath and water is filtered through filter wool and aero balls. We lost power for five days with the floods here in Queensland, but I did small water changes and he seemed to come through fine. That was four weeks ago and I have done two water changes since then.

He is floating on his side at the top of the tank now. Doesn't look too promising.

[Spardas]

First thing that strikes me is the age of the discus. If everyone else in the tank is fine and the discus have been around for 5-6 years, then it may be on its way out.

Second thing is the usage of halite. Are you sure that the halite you're using is pure. I wouldn't use it mainly because of how it's mined and I don't know the source of where you're getting it from. It may contain certain impurities that you wouldn't want in your tank.

Third is the outage issue. 5 days is a long period of time to go without power. How did you heat the tank? Were the parameters exactly the same during the outage as usual?

Fourth, how large are the water changes and how often do you do water change and what's the process? What is your source of water? (tap or well)

Finally, what's the parameters (as in NH3, NO2, NO3)?

[Crispy]

if you did not clean out your filter during that power outage, it would have become toxic soup for your fish.