discus tnak sizes

[One_Trick_Pony]

that abotu says it all!

edit: tank sizw in title, should have 120 all along

 

[Tolak]

A 20 liter is WAY too small.

Tolak

 

[sylvia]

A 20 litre is too small for most fish, let alone discus, as it's only about 5 gallons. Be very careful with what you put in this tank. Most people would suggest a single betta... For discus, you idealy need at least a 55 gallon as they get big and are sensitive.

 

[One_Trick_Pony]

sorry guys i missed the one off! it was meant to read 120, but form syliva's post i guess still to small!

 

[dartos]

You could keep discus in a 120 litre, however it is going to be very costly and your learning curve for keeping discus will need to be very small. You could keep a breeding pair in 120 litres but this will be very expensive (over $150 in the US, so around £5 with the exchange rate ). With them you will need an RO unit for their water and you will need to change around 70%-100% everyday with this smaller volume of water. The tank will also need to be bare bottom, which is not very aesthetically pleasing if you were looking for a show tank.

I just wanted you to know that it IS possible, however with the amount of variables that can go wrong, it is most likely prohibitive. But if you are truly dedicated and have dreamed of discus (like me ) then it is possible.

 

[annka5]

Sorry to hiijack, but I've been looking into keeping discus for a while, and have a daft question:
An adult pair of discus rather than a shoal - will they only get along if they have already bred /are breeding?

 

[dartos]

Sorry to hiijack, but I've been looking into keeping discus for a while, and have a daft question:
An adult pair of discus rather than a shoal - will they only get along if they have already bred /are breeding?

If you are going to have an adult pair then you would want to be encouraging them to pair up. As for the fighting between adult discus: females are known to challenge males before breeding with them to "make sure they are a suitable male." Therefore fighting will occur even if the fish are just beginning to pair up. However if they are not pairing up they will also fight to determine the pecking order. They are afterall cichlids and you might have one discus that will forever pick on the other discus, asserting its dominance. If this happens you should obviously separate the two, otherwise the weaker one will become stressed and disease will result.

I guess an answer to your quesiton would be that they can go either way if they have yet to breed or are breeding. Just be warned that getting a breeding pair is not easy. This is the partial reason that a confirmed breeding pair can be so costly. Also, take into account that I am not a breeder so maybe someone else could help you achieve a pairing.

 

[annka5]

Thanks for the advice.
My idea of keeping an adult pair wasn't really to breed them - I really want to keep discus but a shoal of adults would be totally unaffordable and I've heard that with juvenilles, you need slightly harder water than I have, also need to feed them little and (very) often - like 4 times a day.