Love Is In The .... Tank...?!

[cheesemaker]

alrighty, got meself 4 nice looking brown discus.
Two big ones, the other are smaller.

the pair of bigger ones hang out together all the time. both the smaller ones get bullied and hide away. I think the big ones have paired off, in that case, i would remove the smaller pair, but how do you know for sure?

 

[annka5]

My discus show no signs at all of p[airing off, so this is not from experience! The infamous "discus dance" - they swim up and down and shimmy at each other. Hangin about together and claiming a part of the tank as theirs are also signs.
Most advice I've seen is that you should wait until they've laid eggs at least once before separating them off to breed form them - I think this is to avoid breaking up the early days of their bonding. Also, because young /inexperienced fish will often eat their eggs the first few times, and some will never breed successfully, you can afford to wait to be sure. As I said, this is not something I've experienced myself.

 

[Gourami Lover88]

you should remove the two smaller ones, i have found out the hard way that once a discus gets bullied and doesnt respond back, they will always be bullied and will eventualy die, of stress or not enought food.

how big are the big ones, usualy discus dont start paring up untill they get to be about 6in-15cm and about 15 months old.

 

[cheesemaker]

you should remove the two smaller ones, i have found out the hard way that once a discus gets bullied and doesnt respond back, they will always be bullied and will eventualy die, of stress or not enought food.

how big are the big ones, usualy discus dont start paring up untill they get to be about 6in-15cm and about 15 months old.

i see isee.

the big ones are about 12 cms

small ones 8 and 7

the bigger of the small one started bullying the smallest one, then itself got bullied by the big one. now both hidding and not eating. I think i should take them back to the LFS. then again, if the two big ones didn't paired off, one will get bullied. Should i get a couple of bigger ones?

 

[annka5]

Six discus of reasonably even size would be best spread out aggression. How long have you had them though?
It COULD be that adding two more to bring the number to 6 and leaving it for a couple of weeks would give a difference - I get the impression you've just added them, so they'll not have settled in yet - is that right?
Mine certainly took a biut of time to settle and squabled a lot at first. However, none really hid away like yours are doing - they learnt to stay out the way of the larger discus, but this didn't involve hiding in the plants and refusing to eat, just swimming away from him.

 

[cheesemaker]

Six discus of reasonably even size would be best spread out aggression. How long have you had them though?
It COULD be that adding two more to bring the number to 6 and leaving it for a couple of weeks would give a difference - I get the impression you've just added them, so they'll not have settled in yet - is that right?
Mine certainly took a biut of time to settle and squabled a lot at first. However, none really hid away like yours are doing - they learnt to stay out the way of the larger discus, but this didn't involve hiding in the plants and refusing to eat, just swimming away from him.

That's right, just got them about 2 weeks ago. The two big ones are really enjoying themself and would accept food fed by hand. the small ones are just shy away. Will leave them as they are for the next couple of weeks and see if they settle inmore.

thanks for the advice.