Im wanting to set up a 50 gallon discus tank

[big mick]

I setting up a 50 gallon tank to keep two discuss but wondered if anyone who keeps discuss who could advise on good tank mates.

I was thinking maybe a few clown loach but any tips would be apreciated.

.....oh, and what are they like with a planted aquarium?

 

[Blade]

Cardinal Tetras are pretty standard. You will get mixed opinions on Clown Loaches. Dwarf Cichlids are a good choice.

I think a planted tank is pretty much a must.

 

[bugsy66]

Hi, I have a discus in my tank with an angel fish. The reason for this is that I don't want two discus which would be my max for this tank. They say that each adult discus needs 10 gallons per discus. You could have 3-5 in your tank. I would be more inclined to have three but then you have the problems that I would have run into with two. Two of them would pair off and pick on the third, in my case two discus always bicker no matter what. I had this problem with my angels when I bred them on a large scale, so avoid this I have one discus and one angel.

As for tank mates, cardinals, rummy nose tetras, cory cat, rams, bristlenose pleco.

Now for the bottom, most die hard discus people have bare bottom tanks. There are some very lovely pics of them on the interent and they are usually always planted with driftwood and live plants. I prefer the gravel myself, more natural and I am not breeding either. I only have the one as they were always a fish I wanted to get but very hard here to find.

Lastly, do yourself a huge favor. Even though their natural habitat is very soft water do not adjust your water to create this softness. These discus are now so tank bred they are used to the higher ph unless you actually go out and catch the wild ones yourself. When I was breeding angelfish on a large scale I played with the ph to lower it, sure did a great job at killing my fish. Yep my best breeding pair along with their young.

I decided to leave well enough alone the next time around. My water is hard with a ph of 7.2-8.0 great range and when the angels started to breed and have nice live yound I could not stop them.

When I bought this discus, I knew it came from "artificially" softened store water. It took me 1 hr to acclimatize this fish but I did it slowly and my discus is big and beautiful as ever. So do your self a favor and take your time acclimatizing it to your water conditions you won't be sorry you did.

Have fun, they are truly beautiful fish worth having
Bugsy.....

 

[big mick]

Thanks man, I might just keep one since I have 3 angels at the moment, 2 about 3-4" and the third is about 2".

Are there any breeds of discuss to avoid?

 

[G_Sharky]

It's not good to have only 1 Discus on that tank because this fish doesn't like to be alone and would do a lot better in a group....My advice to you is to keep Discus by themselves on a Bare Bottom tank with maybe a school of rummy nose tetras or neons. It's going to be hard to keep your Discus in a community tank because this fish are very sensitive to bad water qualities, they will not tolerate high nitrates and It's not a good idea to mix it with angels because angels can carry parasites that they are immune to, but not the discus....If your going to go ahead with this, make sure to set your temp all the way up to 30 C/86F all the time, juvi discus need to be feed 3-6 times a day, and do water changes twice a week..It's a lot of work, but once they settled in, it's worth the work....that's if you have time for them..lol....Goodluck...

 

[Inchworm]

Hi big mick

I would like to suggest that you get a small school of C. sterbai corys to keep with your discus. They are perfectly suited to live in discus tanks because they thrive in the same conditions, including the warm water, which is not suitable for most of the other corys.

Here's a link with more information about them:

http/www.planetcatfish.com/catelog/calli...ydora/316_f.php