Considering Discus

[Miss Wiggle]

well i've never kept discus before, we're contemplating getting a pair for our community tank, just wanted opinions on the validity of this set up.

we're not in a position where we want a high maintenance tank, so we're not gonna be going down the whole RO water highb tech side of things, I appreciate there is a lot of knowledge out there that say's you can't keep discus in anything but RO, you must have super soft water which is spotlessly clean or it won't work. However there also seems to be a lot of information around saying providing you get good quality locally bred stock you can keep them in hard water etc with no problems.

So our tap water pH is around 7.2-7.4. We've quite a high KH so softening through peat or anything like that isn't going to work. We're lucky that tap water nitrate is 0, the tank is reasonably heavily planted so nitrates never climb up much higher than 10/15ppm even with a heavy stocking of fish. I'm prepared to do large water changes, but not more than once a week, I travel with my job so can't always be at home to do maintenance more than once a week.

If that sort of set up won't work for discus then don't worry we're not gonna bluster in and get them regardless, we know we can't compromise on the maintenance of the tank which means if the discus won't fit into the set up we won't get any.

The tank is semi stocked at the moment, we're building up to something along these lines.... tank's 60gals, I aim to stock somewhere around 1.5" per gallon so that's 90" or so. So with this lot and a pair of discus it would be fully stocked to a bit over 1.5" per gal. The tank is well filtered with two externals, can't remember the models but there's an eheim and a fluval, both capacle of filtering the tank by themselves.

8 nannacara anomala
10 cardinal tetra
10 harequin rasbora
5 ottos
10 praecox rainbows
15 panda cories
5 chain loaches

So yeah.... any thoughts?

 

[Ludwig Venter]

Y'know... in all aspects of fish keeping, I rely moreso on a gut feel and experience than to take any literature as gospel truth... they've proved me wrong once or twice, but I've proved them wrong many, many times so my gut feel says people are placing too much emphasis on pH and hardness and all that jargon. Surely this becomes important when you intend to breed, but for a simple community aquarium... our fish are much more hardy than people give them credit for and will survive a wide range of conditions.
Yes! I'll chuck 2 Discus in there and only start worrying if no food is taken after the 1st week, which should not be a problem if you obtain your fish from a dealer where they've previously been exposed to other community fish. The big detrimental feature of Discus is their innitial shyness, but being the biggest in size will boost their confidence and they'll fit in like a fish in water..... (Excuse the pun)

 

[Colin_T]

Hey Miss Wiggly Poppins, how you doing

Unless you get wild caught discus you shouldn't have a problem. We had Asian imported discus in the shop display tank for years and never had a problem. The fish came from soft acid water and our water is soft but alkaline (PH about 7.8). The fish went into the display tanks and did really well. They even started breeding in the tank. If you get locally bred fish they should be fine and your PH isn't that high anyway.
The tank was heavily planted and full of assorted tetras, barbs, gouramis & catfish. It got a 50% water change every couple of weeks and was fed really heavily on all sorts of food. The discus would be the first ones up for food and would eat most of the food.
A pair in your tank will be fine but they might argue when mature if they are the same sex.
Discus that are kept in a room with lots of movement will settle down very quickly and won't become shy. They become shy when kept in quiet dark secluded tanks that nobody goes near. Keep the tank in the main living area or wherever you spend most of your time. If they become timid then turn the TV on during the day when you aren't home. You don't need the sound on but the flashing light and movement can help the fish settle down.

 

[Miss Wiggle]

Morning Colin, I'm good ta, hope you're well.

Thanks for that, that's pretty much what I thought.

Tanks in the living room right next to the sofa where Ian sits, we've two very excitable cats so even when we're not in the house ourselves there's often a lot of movement in the room!!!

Can you sex discus easily? I'm guessing not....

All the fish that we have I've seen in tanks with discus in but mostly in fish shops so I thought they were probably compatible, but you just never know as sometimes a combination will work in a fish shop for a few weeks but not long term in your home aquarium.

anyway that's given me some food for thought, we've got some discussions over future stocking of the tank in the next few weeks......

 

[Colin_T]

Hi Wiggly Poppins

Discus are notoriously hard to sex unless they are breeding. Then the males have a longer thinner ovipositor, and the females have a shorter wider one. Big male discus sometimes develop the lumpy forehead (similar to male angelfish) caused by a build up of fat. But besides that you don't really have much chance of sexing them. You can get them DNA tested at some vets but you have to look around to find someone who does it. It's also expensive to get done.
If you end up with two females it shouldn't be a problem, two males might argue. If you want a breeding pair then get 6-8 young and let them grow up together and pair off naturally. Then once you have a pair, get rid of the others.

 

[Miss Wiggle]

i thought as much, for most people it's a case of wait until they're adults and show clearly male/female behaviour around breeding time then!

got no room for breeding tanks so wouldn't be going down that route.

 

[Sheilaf]

I don't know if I can help or not. I recently took the Discus plunge myself. I don't know what the KH of my water is but the ph is about 7.6. I do nothing t alter the water and they are doing fine. I do 2 water changes a week but I think you could probably get away with 1 large one. Mine are in a bare bottom tank for now and seem to be less shy than when I had them in a planted tank. The only think I think you may have to worry about with only 2 is aggression. Not that they are really aggressive but they can pick on each other. I started with 6 and had problems with the dominant one bullying the most submissive one out of food. I added a 7th which was as big as my dominant one and it helped immensley. I'm probably wrong but when I was asking questions everyone told me the more the merrier and Discus aren't really happy if they aren't in groups (unless it is a mated pair).

 

[Miss Wiggle]

thanks for the info Sheilah, we don't have room for a group of them so it'd have to be a pair

I know with other more aggressive cichlids you can only keep two together if they are a proper mated pair...... anyone else got opinions if the same applies to discus or not?

 

[rabbut]

well i've never kept discus before, we're contemplating getting a pair for our community tank, just wanted opinions on the validity of this set up.

we're not in a position where we want a high maintenance tank, so we're not gonna be going down the whole RO water highb tech side of things, I appreciate there is a lot of knowledge out there that say's you can't keep discus in anything but RO, you must have super soft water which is spotlessly clean or it won't work. However there also seems to be a lot of information around saying providing you get good quality locally bred stock you can keep them in hard water etc with no problems.

So our tap water pH is around 7.2-7.4. We've quite a high KH so softening through peat or anything like that isn't going to work. We're lucky that tap water nitrate is 0, the tank is reasonably heavily planted so nitrates never climb up much higher than 10/15ppm even with a heavy stocking of fish. I'm prepared to do large water changes, but not more than once a week, I travel with my job so can't always be at home to do maintenance more than once a week.

I live near-ish you and use tap water only for my discus tank, with the same pH, no issues IME, hardness is more important than pH with discus though. What are your acctual KH and GH readings? My own system runs with a GH of arround 9 GdH, and I haven't tested KH for quite a while. I can't see this aspect being an issue.

I do a 30-50% weekly waterchange, so weekly waterchanges IME are easily doable, just make sure you get fish over about 5 inches, then weekly waterchanges shouldn't risk stunting them

The tank is semi stocked at the moment, we're building up to something along these lines.... tank's 60gals, I aim to stock somewhere around 1.5" per gallon so that's 90" or so. So with this lot and a pair of discus it would be fully stocked to a bit over 1.5" per gal. The tank is well filtered with two externals, can't remember the models but there's an eheim and a fluval, both capacle of filtering the tank by themselves.

8 nannacara anomala
10 cardinal tetra
10 harequin rasbora
5 ottos
10 praecox rainbows
15 panda cories
5 chain loaches

So yeah.... any thoughts?

The Rainbows and chain loach would be too actie for discus IMO. Without these, I'd say try by all means, but I'd advise you to move these to a different tank if possible before trying it. Younger discus can be "trained" to get along with these fish from what others have been telling be, but sub-adults are less tolerant.

A pair of discus will likely become 1 discus within a few weeks, as they need to be alone, in a proven pair or a group of 5 plus to avoid agression issues. Proven pairs have been known to undergo "divorse" after longer transit, so that may be a risk that you need to think about before taking.

Interfish at Oscet is IMO the best discus outlet near us, but then I haven't yet given QSS a call. Only thing to point out though is that their discus seen prone to protozoa infection after moving, so when you introduce them, heat treat as a precaution in QT, at 35-36c Discus will take this easily, but your community fish (pandas) will not take this heat. The main tnak needs to be upped to 30c a few weeks before getting them in readyness

HTH
Rabbut

EDIT TO ADD: there was a number for a private breeder left at my LFS over the weekend. I will be calling in for a visit at some point, but I'll get his number and PM you if you decide to get some... He breeds Marbolo Reds, Blue Diamonds, pidgon bloods and another type I forgot the name of. All brood stock apparently origionate from an internationaly renound German breeder, and all the fish he has brough to my place of work have been of A1 quality Drop by Paws For Though York Road over the weekend if you can an take a look at the "locally bread marbolo discus" to get an idea as to what his fish may look like. Stunning, but at 3 inches, I'd advise against getting any unless you can be about to do waterchanges every other day at least untill they get to 5 inches (about 1-2 months time)

 

[DiscusKeeper403]

Discus should be fine. My tap parameters are similar to yours and my fish have no problem. Not sure if it has been said, but the only thing I might add is that you will have better luck with full grown Discus. Juveniles won't grow well with weekly water changes...

 

[DiscusAngel]

your set up sounds ideal for discus apart your stocking like already said, the chain loaches and rainbow fish would be too active for the discus.

when i was a newb i bought 2 discus and the fighted i then learnt that they needed to be kept in groups and they lived happily in a group of 7, since downgrading i have a breeding pair that live together peacefully and breed but the eggs get eaten this could be a way round it for you.

If that was my tank id remove all the rainbow fish and chain loaches and add 5 discus. with over filteration i think it would be ok.

but if not get a breeding pair and just let the eggs get eaten or the pair may be aggressive and not let them get eaten by 9 times out of 10 the eggs with be somehow eaten by the corys.

HTH any more questions feel free to pm me

DA

 

[Miss Wiggle]

well that's a no go then, we've got the rainbows already, just got 1 tank at the moment so nowhere to move them too and they aren't being re-homed. the chains we don't have yet but Ian has his heart set on them I think. So if they won't work with discus then it's a non-strarter, thanks for the help though people.

 

[Colin_T]

Praecox rainbows shouldn't be a problem to discus. They are only small fish and are not going to bully them. Chain Loaches are no different to clown loaches and won't cause any issues either. The discus in the shop tanks had rainbows and loaches in with them and were fine. And the rainbows were Melanotaenia trifasciata which grow a lot bigger than M. praecox. We had them in with black widow, black & red phantom, bleeding heart, gold tetras and others, tiger, gold, cherry & checkered barbs, blue & gold gouramis, numerous different catfish and loaches, and the discus were the most dominant fish in the tank.
The discus were young when put in the tank and the other fishes had been in there for a few months before that happened. They grew up with the other fishes and didn't have any poblems.

 

[Miss Wiggle]

just looked back through the thread, i mean dwarf chain loaches..... sorry didn't say. they are pretty active but only teeny tiny!!

 

[rabbut]

The issues with stocking were highlighted, not because of bullying, but more because these fish are very active, in the case of the loaches, at night, and thus will stress the discus, keeping them in a state of high alert.

Sub-adult discus can be trained to like these fish, even swim with them, but the sub-adult discus would need at least twice weekly waterchanges to keep them going. Adult discus would be harder to make get along with these fish, as they have learnt that fast movement=danger, hence why they would stress out

As an example of training, I have Botia Kubotia in with mine now. I introduced them while the discus were arround 5 inches, and they get along fine. A mate of mine added them to a tank with mature discus and the severly upset them with all the activity. After 2 weeks of the discus refusing to eat due to stress he removed them, and the discus went back to normal

I suppose you could try 5 inch discus Miss W. They are the point at which discus become less maintanance, but they are still sub-adult and hopefuly trainable. Add them and watch to see how they go. If they haven't settled within a week or two, get another tank for them or alternatively re-home the discus.

All the best
Rabbut