help with discus that have gone stripy

[jojo83]

hi i got two blue snakeskins on sat and they are both settleing well but have gone stripy! would getting rid of some of the tamk mates help with this?

[Lady Hobbs]

What tankmates? Actually knowing what else is with your discus would help?

Discus are generally kept as species only tanks due to their cost and not wanting disease passed onto them. You generally see them with cardinals or bristle-nose pleco's but not a lot of others.

Was the tank cycled?

[jojo83]

i have 2 gouramis, 6 bolivian rams and quite alot of different tetras i am thinking of giving all the tetras up to give the discus more space!! what do you mean by cycled?

thanks

[WhiteDevil]

What color gravel, what color background, water parameters? lighting?

When discus settle into their surroundings they tend to try and blend in and those stripes are actually bars and most discus that have true wild genetics in them will show the bars more so then discus of genetically altered genes(designer fish)

[CassieLEO]

On Lady Hobbs signature it talks about cycling a tank, I think you should read it to understand everything....

[jojo83]

we have a fine light gravel not as fine as sand tho! the bulb is a power glo bulb and there are quite a few live plants! the fish seem happy in themselves swimming in the open and coming to the front of the tank to me. I was just worried as i had read that they only show their stripes when they are scared?

thanks for the replies guys

[Lady Hobbs]

jojo......cycling a tank is one of the most important things you need to know before adding fish to a tank. You must grow a good amount of bacteria in the filter or you'll have ammonia and nitrites levels that will kill your fish. Do you have a test kit so you can take water readings regarding toxins?

[jojo83]

in that case yes i have lol!!! i have a 2000l/h external filter which has been fish cycles 3 months before i added the discus!! i knew this process as maturing not cycling thats why i got confused haha silly me!!

[Lady Hobbs]

Thanks for clarifying. You scared me for a minute.

[jojo83]

sorry didnt mean to!!ha ha so you think its wise to get rid of some of the other tank mates then? i feel like its a good move??

[WhiteDevil]

what color is the gravel and background, discus will try and blend in as best they can when stressed but I havnt seen a discus yet that wasnt stressed about 15x a day much of it to its own doing.

[3dees]

not much you can do about the stripes or mood bars. they will usually come and go. causes could be aggression, feeding, being frieghtened or in my case the flash when taking pics,lol. don't worry about it although if they don't fade and are always dark, it could be a sign that something is wrong.