Discus care

[Golfnut]

Hi,

I've been thinking about getting some Discus. I was wondering how much care is needed to keep some. I'm thinking of about 4 for a 33g or 6 for a 55g tank. I want to have gravel and some live plants. Although I've read that most discus are kept in bare tanks to ease cleaning.

I was at Pisces and they have a *huge* discus display tank with lots of plants and drift wood. It certainly didn't look super "clean", but there were lots of discus in there. I asked an employee and he said it's just calgary water with no additional ph adjustment.

Anyone own discus and have a setup similar to this? When you do a water change, do you have to match the water temp before putting it in? How often do you change the water? Would 20% once a week be enough?

THANKS!

Andrew

[Smokey]

In very general terms; the younger the discus the more care that is required. BB tanks are the general rule for young discus. Being the easiest to keep clean of uneated food and stools. After they mature and become more used to your water, maintance, foods, they can be kept in a planted tank.

Water conditions - the NO3's are the most important, I would say. Very young - under 10ppm = which accounts for the daily w/c's. [ food in waste out]. Even as the discus mature [ 1 year+] a low No3 is recommended. W/C'S .

Because of the intial cost of discus, and usually a group is best when starting out, a person has be able to provide very clean healthy water for them. Remember_A 6 month old is still a fry. And the younger they are more intense time required to keep them health and strong.

I would venture to say a discus older then I year can be a good candiate for a well planted tanks. Rule of thumb 10 gallons of water for every inch of discus.

HTH

[just like a baby; feeding and diaper changes.... :smokey: ]

Edited December 9, 2004 by Smokey

[AndyL]

Honestly, I think discus have gotten a bad rap for being hard to keep. For me, they've been about the hardiest fish I've owned.

They do however require some special care, like smokey said - keeping the water quality up is absolutely necessary. Smokey mentions 10ppm, I was aiming for a maximum of 5ppm. to each his own...

One of the major issues with discus, and the never ending water changes, is you have to plan ahead on how you're going to age your water. Alberta water, after it comes out of the tap, isn't the most stable thing in the world - depending where you are, your pH can either spike, or gradually drop over the course of the next 24 hours. When you're doing a big daily water change, that can cause the fish to be in a almost constantly stressed condition - which leads to onsets of disease and problems of stunting/runting.

To put this in perspective, I blew out my knee in march, was unable to continue with my water ageing system (couldn't lift the 5g bottles of prepped water) then the move put storage tanks 2 floors below me - didn't have the $ for a pump strong enough to provide prepped water to the discus tank. Had to use a python instead. During the 8 months of weekly python water changes, I had to treat for flukes and worms each once (think it was twice on the worms, memory is getting foggy now). Versus the previous year, where I treated them once for worms, right after I got them (and they were stressed to heck from shipping).

Since they've been in josh's care, they've regained a lot of color lost during that 8 months, and are actively spawning again. They do bounce back, but young fish won't 'bounce back' when it comes to putting on size...

If you really want a planted discus tank - look to someone like Steve, who's selling a bunch of adults right now. Otherwise plan to keep bare bottom for the first year. There's nothing worse than seeing a 2-3" discus that's as big as he's gonna get. Even those fish at pisces in the discus display tank, are well shy of their potential size...

One other thing to keep in mind, is you will need QT facilities for discus, even if it's just a spare empty tank, and spare filter running in the main tank. When you add something to the tank, quarantine it... Nothing more heartbreaking than loosing a thousand dollars worth of fish because you tossed in XYZ without quarantine. And I can tell you - that XYZ can be as simple as a plant cutting.

Lastly, get all your discus at first from one place. Reduces the risk of disease transfer. Start with no less than 6 and try to abide by the 1discus / 10g rule.

Andy

Smokey - no lecture's on peat bombs? I'm shocked and dismayed :tongue:

Edited December 9, 2004 by AndyL

[Ryan]

The trick to discus is water and food. I dont do anything to my water exept heat it and bubble it for 24 hours there is another guy here in town that does the same thing. Andy and I got our fish well one of my fish from the same person. That is another big factor good breedeers. I would highly recomend golds and river front. Once you have it down do a order from a breeder.

as for your 20% weekly it could be done if it was a 50 gallon tank with 2 discus but hey 2 discus just doenst work unless they are a pair.

You can raise discus in a planted tank it is harder because of once again water quality issues so i would grow them in a BB then once they are adults transfer them over to a planted tank.

Edited for content - Albert

Edited December 10, 2004 by albert_dao

[Nandopsis]

*Ryan* Note to self. Do not taunt Mods or the Admins Will Ban my @$$!

OOPS!!! to late. You were warned.

See you in the Banned Forum. *Smart @$$*

[Golfnut]

Hmmm, ok. I'll think a little more and see if I'm willing to put up with the work.

Thanks for the input everyone.

Regards,

Andrew

[albert_dao]

Ha! Ha! I found it!

[Nandopsis]

There you go bud, I knew you could do it.

I'am so proud of you. :thumbs:

[Smokey]

Hahahaha. you beat me to the punch.

BTW - I mentioned under 10ppm. Most "freak" at such low numbers.

[ a phish fart = 2ppm..lol].

And I have learned not to mention the use of blackwater.

Thanks for the reminder.

Smokey