Well I went home for lunch this afternoon and did my usual routine. I got the discus their pellets and flake and started soaking them in tank water. When I went to feed them 10 min. later I did a head count and made sure everyone looked fine.

I came up 1 discus short, the red scribbled. worry wart! I also found our only long finned blue ram gasping for air and it looked like his eye balls were going to pop out of his head.

No one else was gasping. I searched the rest of the tank and I found the missing discus. :FAINTLY: He was dead in the back of the tank behind a bunch of plants. So I grabbed a net and got him out of the tank. I put him in a container with tank water and left him sit until I can look at him more closely when I get home.

I just got a call from Jason and he said everyone is gasping now so I told him to turn the filter outlet up to put more O2 in the tank. Right now I'm impatiently waiting for 4:30 to roll around so that I can rush home and test the water and do a water change accordingly.

Anyone got any ideas as to what might be going on?? I think it might have something to do with the Blue Diamond and the Silver Pigeon spawning over the weekend and stressing the other discus. As far as the blue ram I have no idea what could be the problem there, considering that they just got done spawning again on Sunday night. dumb dumb

I'll edit post with water readings when I get home if I can get my internet to work!

Okay well the internet wasn't working right last night.

I went and bought a microscope from Toys R Us last night and played around with that after doing a water change and Jason taking the long finned ram out and putting him in QT. It looks like the Ram has pop eye. What causes that?? I've never had any of my fish have that before. Also I did some disecting on the dead discus and his poo looked completely healthy, so did his gills and body. So I've marked his death off to stress related.

All my parameters before my water change were normal.
PH was down to 7.4
A-0
NI-0
NA-0 due to the plants
Temp. 84F

wow, that is some thorough investigation. keep an eye on the other discus and keep us posted.

How confident are you that your test kits are accurate? (I'm asking because eye issues normally stem from one of 3 things...Poor water quality, injury / netting, or bacterial infection...) If the kits are liquid reagent and less than 6 months opened, I'd be comfortable with them. (If they are strip tests, I'd get a second opinion on the parameters...)

How long could the discus have been dead in the tank? When was the last time you saw him?

When was your last water change prior to the death?

Is there any chance any contaminant was introduced to the tank prior to all this starting?

Kim, test kits are accurate as I only got them a few months ago and they are liquid.

The discus could have been dead for up to 13 hrs. in the tank. The last time I look at the tank is 10-11 pm and first feeding is at noon the next day which is when I spotted him. worry wart!

Last prior water change was done Monday 6/9 in the evening. A little more than 50% was done.

The only thing that I have done remotely different was I made Pork and Sourkraut (sp?) on Sunday and I sprayed an odor elimenator on the carpet on monday when I opened the windows to get rid of the overwhelming smell of sourkraut since we didn't have the windows open on sunday (that was a mouthfull). I didn't spray near the tank (or even in the same room) and I have glass lids with holes only big enough for the XP's intakes and outlets to fit in.

Yeah the ram has not been netted since we moved them in the 90 from qt which was a while ago. Then he was netted last night to put him back in qt. It's only his left eye (if your looking directly at the front of him) that is huge and he's still breathing rapidly. I want to put him out of his misery but Jason wants to see if he improves. It could be from injury because like I said before they did just spawn so he might have been chasing someone away and hit a piece of driftwood or something. idunno

All the others look fine. I did notice last night that 1 discus has a small scratch on his side but I think that's from them darting around at water change because I didn't know he was in the one plant and I stuck my hand in and scared the crap out of him. Another discus has some peck spots but again I mark that up to being pushed around do to breeding.

Any ideas?

Yoda, let me tell you I've never gotten this worked up about fish before especially doing a disection on a dead fish. Boy did it stink and I even put it in the fridge so it wouldn't be so bad!!

If you didn't use the spray in the room, then I don't think that could be it. I guess there is always a possibility that a draft took some of it in the room, but with you spraying it on the floor/carpet, that would have to be one crazy draft!

Liquid test kits are good...I worry about the strip kind...

You don't have a CO2 injector on this tank, do you?

Is the ram eating? Heavy breathing is indicative of just about every fish ailment known...He's still out of the main tank, right?

It's possible that he was injured in the scuffles surrounding the spawn. As for the discus, it's hard to say...Since the other fish in the tank seem to be fine, I would focus on the ram for now. I think I'd just try doing frequent water changes and add some Melafix. Heavier meds can stress him more, and that cloudy eye is stressful enough by itself. Besides, without any other symptoms, what would you treat with med wise?

There's no CO2 on the 90 just on the 20 gallon shrimp tank.

I couldn't tell you if he's eating or not. I didn't try to feed him yet, I wanted to wait till I had time to watch him for awhile so I'll do that when I get home in about an hour. Yes, he's still in QT. He won't be making an appearence in the 90 till I know he's 110% better!

Thanks for all your ideas Kim! I'll try melafix and see if he improves at all. I'll keep everyone updated. I might have to make a run to the LFS if my melafix is outdated, I haven't had to use that in a long time. But then again if I could break Derek away from his secret stash I could get a bottle from him! Giggly Sorry Derek I couldn't resist!

Well I went home and checked the expiration date on my Melafix and it was still good so I added 5ml to 10 gallons in the QT tank for the long finned ram and he looked like his eye was improving within hours of adding the Melafix. So I went to bed. I woke up this morning to a dead ram. worry wart!

On a good note all the discus look fine. Eating, pooping and swimming around showing no signs of illness (knock on wood).

The Silver Pigeon and Blue Diamond are doing their thing again so I'm gonna run down to the hardware store and get some eggcrate to divide them from the rest of the tank so the other discus don't get too stressed out.

Well, I'm at a loss on this one...Unless it was just the stress from the spawning activity, I don't know what it could be with all the others appearing to be fine.

I'd keep a very close eye on the tank for a while!