# Other Aquarium Forums > Fish Care, Nutrition and Water Management >  Discus fish turning black

## scooby

Hi, I bought some juvenile discus last week and throughtout the week i noticed their color has changed to almost grey/black from orginal beige/brown and stripe colour. 
what is happening ? is it becasue of too much light ? i am keeping plants and other fish in the aquarium. they all seem ok.

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## Giant

A friend of mine had a similar experience before.
He mentioned that its because the water is too cold for the discus.

Bring the temp up & it should be alright.

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## Sidious

it happened to my discus as well... i think their not used to the tank or water condition yet... may be wronf as i still consider myself newbie after a month... hehe.. but thats my experience...

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## scooby

hmm.. ok. i will try to switch off the fan and see what happens. i noticed the past couple of days the fish was hanging closer to the surface of the tank where the light is.

any other suggestions ?

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## celticfish

> hmm.. ok. i will try to switch off the fan and see what happens. i noticed the past couple of days the fish was hanging closer to the surface of the tank where the light is.
> 
> any other suggestions ?


bring the temp up to 30 or 32.
when they recover then try to lower the temp.
do a search in the forum.
i remember reading someone having this problem in a planted tank too.

celticfish

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## dennis_yong

> hmm.. ok. i will try to switch off the fan and see what happens. i noticed the past couple of days the fish was hanging closer to the surface of the tank where the light is.
> 
> any other suggestions ?


hi maybe do u hv enuf air for them not sure cox i still new but to me is they going up there to get some air

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## Simon

if your discus is near to the surface in a planted tank, its probably due to the CO2 content in the water. Darkening is a sign of stress, this is normal especially when you introduce discus into a new environment. Some hobbyist uses blackwater solution to de-stress the discus. Also, sometimes highly traffic areas around a tank do cause stress to discus. Unless they are used to the surrounding, best to avoid placing them in high traffic areas in your house. Notice some LFS keep their discus on the top shelves.

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## Justikanz

So, are the discus stressed out by the high CO2 or the low temp? I am intending to keep discus and my tank temp had always been 26.5 - 28C... Will it be too low?

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## Simon

basically, discus is fine with lower than 30C.. we only raise the temp when fighting against viruses/parasite. its usually the new environment plus totally new water condition that stresses them

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## blueray

For your case might be high co2. How big is your tank and the co2 injection? Also, do you do water change regularlly? Basically, I think discus are one of the kind of fishes that really need regular water change. At least that for my experience. I usually do 30% water change twice per week but there was once that I was so sick that I only manage at the weekend. By then, I notice that the fishes are not that lively and lost it appretide. End up had to do 30% dialy for the next whole week.

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