How Many Cardinals In My Discus Tank?

[markandhisfish]

4x2x2 tank 2 large eheim externals planted ,with 6 discus, how big a shoal of cardinals could i get in there ( its so long since i stocked with small fish ive almost forgotten how to do it )

at the mo im thinking of around 25. does that sound about right or could it be upped a bit to maybe 30?

 

[simonas]

no idea of the proper answer but I would have 25-30! would look ace. when i kept discus I kept a load of cardinals and a load of rummy nose and in my opinion the rummy nose looked more impressive as a group

 

[markandhisfish]

right then 30 it is! i do like rummy noses and i have considered getting some of each but i decided on a big group of cardinals for the colour impact against the plants.

 

[minxfishy]

30 will look stunning alongside some Discus

 

[markandhisfish]

yeah thats what i was thinking. a thought just occured to me , do you rekon id be best off adding the cardinals 1st so there are allready some dithers in for the discus or let the discus get in and settled 1st?

 

[minxfishy]

I would add the cardinals 1st, they can be tricky fish too, although (and this is only from what I read when looking into cardinals) that the more you add at a time, the better they do, in small groups they seem to die off quickly, probably thru stress of not being in a large enough group.

They would make the Discus feel more secure I would imagine.

 

[markandhisfish]

yep seems sound reason to me . i rekon il go about it in this order ( gonna be quite a job!)

1 order all the hardware etc
2 remove all remaining stock , complete stripdown and drain , complete scrub down etc
3 remove all wood scrub with boiling water add plant substrate, sand and wood refill , order plants
4 make diy "feeder" to keep filter alive ( basicly just an ammonia dosed bin of water to run the filter on
5 plant
6 have well earned beer!!
7 seed the new external with all the media from the mature internal and some from the current external plumb it all back up
8 add 30 cardinal tetras
9 1 to 2 weeks later after carefull testing and monitoring to ensure theres no nasty surprises like ammona spikes etc add the discus
10 crack open another well earned beer and enjoy!!

or at least thats the plan but me being me you just know it wont go THAT smoothley

 

[minxfishy]

Well the plan sounds good, but like you say, this is you........

 

[Truck]

You could easily have over 200, although that would work out expensive at retail prices, so buying from a supplier would be a better option.

 

[markandhisfish]

i think 200 would be a tad overkill altho 50 would sure look good. after all this tank is meant to be all about the discus and if i had 200 cardinals they would be the dominating feature as opposed to the "sideshow" they are intended to be .

 

[markandhisfish]

its not proving too easy finding 1 that supplies to the general public

 

[discus_lover]

30 cardinal no problem at all...