Discus Bullying

[jmuccillo]

I thought these were supposed to be peaceful fish.

I purchased 3 2” discus around 6 months ago and housed them in a 250 l species tank. After having settled in they quickly developed a pecking order with one fish becoming the brunt of what appeared to be some discus bullying. I went back to the LFS from whence they came and was advised to add more discus to the tank. I purchased one more and after a few hours of having added it to the tank it too started bullying the weakest fish.

6 months later three of the discus have more than doubled in size while the bullied fish has not grown at all. It spends most of its time cowering in a corner trying to keep out of everyone’s way. Lately it seems to have lost its appetite. Although it still looks healthy with good colour, breathing O.K and no fin clamping I can’t help thinking that its current level of stress will eventually lead to its demise. The other fish are all healthy and growing fast.

I’ve considered the following options:
Buy more fish and make my LFS wealthy.
Move it to a separate quarantine tank (not a viable long term solution).
Trade it for what may or may not be a stronger fish.

Any suggestions?

joe2

 

[funkybodal]

Bullying is not uncommon with Discus - particularly younger fish. This is abit of a long shot but you could try buying one (or more) fully grown adult discus. I've read that the older fish help to keep the youngsters in check, preventing this sort of bullying from occurring.

You might want to move the little guy to your quarantine tank for a couple of weeks so you can feed him up abit etc.

Good luck.
Cheers,
Luke.

 

[apester]

I had the exact same thing happen to me. I posted the same question 2 weeks ago. I purchased 4 discus about 6 months ago and 3 of them bully 1 which is now half the size of the others. I cut a piece of clear acrylic to divide the tank and put the small discus in one half by himself. He seems to be doing great now he eats a lot more and seems less stressed. I think he misses being with the other discus but with the clear acrylic they can still see each other. It is funny watching the other discus try to attack him and they can't. He just swims along the acrylic and watches them try to bite him. I thought about putting him in his own tank but I wasn't sure if that would be to stressful being by himself. Also I only have to maintain the one tank. It has only been 2 weeks but so far so good.

 

[jmuccillo]

Well their's a coincidence. Perhaps 4 discus in a tank is not a good number.
I tried creating a few hiding places for it in the tank. It seems to be able to find a little solice in one of the caves I made out of a group of rocks and occasionally even defends its territory. Hopefully it will start to feed again.

Merry Christmas,

Joe.