Discus fish along with other tropical fish are very sensitive to Chlorine and other additives that municipal water companies add to the water to keep us safe… I have a Discus Fish customer in the Florida Keys that made the fatal flaw of using only Sodium Thiosulfate to remove Chlorine from his water that he put into his Discus Fish tank. This worked fine for him for years until the city started using Chloramine (a bond of chlorine and Ammonia) while this creates a safer drinking water for humans it is deadly to discus fish and other tropical fish species. The Thiosulfate only removes the chlorine, leaving the ammonia… Sad to say he lost several hundred Angelfish and Discus Fish…
The solution? Use a quality dechlorinator such as Amquel. This product and other like products remove not only chlorine, but also chloramine from your discus fish aquarium. You never know when the city will make a change like this… and the gamble just isn’t worth the few dollars saved. Another big helper is having a low pH in your discus fish aquarium… Ammonia is converted to ammonium at a pH below 7.0, making it far less toxic to Discus fish and other tropical fish species. There are other benefits to this lower pH, the slime coats on Discus Fish is kept thicker making them more resistant to disease. Bacteria and Virus that are harmful to Discus fish do not reproduce near as abundantly in lower pH’s. People often tell me… My local pet shop or local Discus Fish breeder raises their Discus Fish in a pH of 7.5 so they will acclimate into local water easier.
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