New discus

[firestorm]

So we picked up our 2 wild caught discus early on this week, unfortunately we didn't have a quarantine tank available for them, but we have been monitoring them every day to make sure everything goes well and we can catch anything that may happen early on. Here are some pics!!!

[Sam Chicklets]

What is the striped fish in the picture?

[Parachromis1]

uhhh frontosa and angelfish with discus?

thats a no no.

and they kinda look stressed out imo.

and not really wild caught looking... :ph43r:

[Sam Chicklets]

Angels and discus maybe, but fronts? totaly different water chemistry. Which is why I pointed out the front to begin with..

[geleen]

I like them Look nice and round. :thumbs:

J.

[Parachromis1]

ohh and just so you know.

the discus in picture two looks like it has ich

on its caudal fin.

id look closer at it since i could barely notice it.

but it does make sense since they do look stressed outl.

[Kevin]

ohh and just so you know.

the discus in picture two looks like it has ich

on its caudal fin.

id look closer at it since i could barely notice it.

but it does make sense since they do look stressed outl.

Quinn - she is showing off her new fish and you have nothing nice to say. If it was helpful that would be ok, but in two posts you have proven you know little about discus.

The spots come and go on the fins - generally when they are settling into a new tank. There has been discussion on discus boards on these before and no-one is entirely sure of their nature. I feel that they are probably just bacteria on blemishes that disapear once the fish settles. Much like the bacteria that forms on the rim of the fins after a slight ammonia burn from bagging. Ich is rarely an issue for discus as they like water that is 82-88 degrees. However if you are keeping the fish at 80, and the fish have received a temperature shock then they are susceptible tp ich.

The fish do not look stressed out, they are very lovely blues and I would trade any one of my discus for the discus in the third picture. I am not sure on the collecting local, but this looks alot like what some call a Royal Blue. What is really interesting is that these two fish are so different they may have come from collecting areas hundreds of kms apart. If this came in with a wild shipment, you did very well as wilds that nice very rarely make it to western Canada (we are the last stop on the wild discus distributor train). Please PM me if Denis has anymore like that.

Regarding water chemistry - it is a myth that discus need modified PH and KH. That is only true for hatching the eggs, and that has even been done in Calgary water. What is most important is lots of clean water changes that have constant temperature, PH and KH/GH. In Calgary the easiest way to do that is to preheat and age your water changing water. Having your water age in a holding tank and be brought to the same temperature as your tank is something that has made a huge difference to my discus keeping.

The following are not to be critical, but to help.

Regarding tank mates, I am a purist and believe that discus will do best by themselve or with smaller less agressive tank mates. Lots of different combinations can work, but I can forsee problems for you if you are keeping them with Africans and Angels. They might be ok today, but as the other fish grow it will get worse. Angels and Africans are more agressive than discus, they will stress the fish out eventually which can lead to eventual death.

I also forsee problems with your stocking levels. I think that you siad that was a 90 gallon tank. With all those fish in there, unless you are doing 1-2 50% plus water changes a week, your nitrates will get too high and will weaken the fish. Weak discus will stop eating and wither away and die.

Planted discus tanks - these are tricky but can be done. Some discus do fine in them, and others do not. The only tricky thing will be temperature. To stimulate your discus' appetites you should raise the temperature to ~86 until they get used to you and your food. Increased temperature is also a way to fight certain discus ailments. Your plants will not do well at that temperature. Also the plants need to be thriving to add to the well being of the fish. Someone on the forum once siad, "If you take care of your plants, they will take care of your fish". I could be wrong, but it does not look like you have to cut back your plants every week to see the fish. If your plants are just getting by, then they could start to decompose and eventually lead to water issues.

One thing I did notice from the pictures is that the new fish is pic #1 has cloudy eyes. Keep an eye on it and if it gets any worse treat with salt (tough on plants unfortunately).

I can see your other fish in pic #1, I would love to see another shot of it. It has a nice fat forehead.

I think you asked about Prazipro. I know that Riverside has some, but I don't know how much it is. The cheapest Canadian place on the web is petsandponds.com. Your fish look like they are in pretty great shape though and I don't know if I would treat them as medication adds stress to fish.

Are your new fish eating? What are you feeding them? What temperature are you keeping them at? What kind of water changes are you planning?

Please let me know how getting them eating goes. Training wilds on anything other then FBW can be very difficult.

Good luck with those beautiful fish. Pm me if you would like to discuss more. Sorry about the information dump above, but I am very passionate about discus.

Kevin

[Fish_Frenzy]

Well said Kevin and they are gorgeous Discus! :drool: Great find! That being said...

I have read that it isn't a good idea to keep Discus and Angels together because Angels carry a parasite that is natural for the Angels, but bad for the Discus. Angels are also more agressive at feeding time and the Discus will not get the required amount of food to sustain them.

I have 5 tanks of Discus and have tried a variety of fish to compliment the Discus. I currently have:

Cardinal tetras ( great dithers, add lots of color and thrive in the warmer water)

German Blue Rams (colorful and occupy the lower third of the tank)

Small Clown Loaches (2-3 inches or smaller as larger clowns get too rambunctious)

Bristlenose Plecos (just gotta keep an eye on them as some have a tendancy to eat the Discus slime coat)

Sterbai cories (they love the warmer temperature and are great clean up crews)

Just take this advice with a grain of salt, what works for some may not work for others, but Discus are a more delicate species and require greater care. Lots of water changes and steady temp and ph etc are a must. Enjoy your beautiful new wet pets...they have a great personality that you will come to love.

I have one Discus in particular (her name is Crush) that has stolen my heart...she is the boss and when its feeding time, she slaps her tail against the thermometer (repeatedly) to "remind" me that she is waiting... lol!

Tammy

Edited April 6, 2008 by Fish_Frenzy

[firestorm]

Thanks guys for your useful suggestions. And if you just want to criticize me then why not just not respond to my post. I know that fronts are not the best tank mates for discus so that is why we only have them in there for now while they are still small, and will be buying another larger tank for them in about 3-4 months. As for angels, I did not know they were that bad to mix with discus, so thank you for giving me a heads up.

So far they haven't really eaten anything yet, and no they do not look as stressed now as they did at the store. Many discus as well will develop black spots when they are in stress, which is often why you see them that way. We also had a small discus that had the black spots, but they started to go away. We only got these guys this past friday, so of course it will take them a week or 2 to get used to the tank.

Right now in the tank we have 4 discus, 4 german blue rams, 2 bolivian rams, 3 frontosas, 2 blue acaras, 4 angels, 3 kribensis, 1 apistogramma, 1 black ghost knife, and 1 pictus catfish, 4 cherry barbs(we couldn't catch to sell, and hope they get eaten), 4 ottos, 2 siamese algae eaters, and 4 ghost shrimp.

We will be doing 2 25% water changes at least every week, and that being said we leave our water as is and don't mess with pH's and stuff, so since my pH is 7.6 and KH is about 120ppm, both the discus and frontosas will survive fine in these waters. Soon after removing my frontosas I will be starting slowly to use some RO water in their tank, I am still waiting for my system to come in the mail. I feed my fish mostly NLS pellets, sometimes we feed our nutrafin max to get rid of it, and sometimes things like spirulina disks or frozen treats. I may try rubbing the food in garlic if the discus don't eat within 5 or 6 days.

We believe the discus with darker stripes is a blue red maues discus, and the other one a blue manacapuru discus. I really do believe they are wild caught because of all the pictures we have seen of different types of discus. Most domestic discus are the ones with all the fancy colors, since they cross breed until they get pretty colors, just like alot of other fish. They are both in the bottom pic, and all the rest of the pics are just other ones of them. And I do believe the glass was a little streaky because I looked at their eyes and they are both fine. As for the spots on the ones fin, I have already seen that and I am keeping my eye on it. Thanks guys, I am still pretty new at keeping discus, so I am open to any helpful tips. I might be grabbing a couple more wild caught discus from spencer jacks in a month or so, which will probably be my limit. Kevin if you would like to see about going in on buying some from spencer, let me know. And denis had about a few left, but that was on friday, so I am not sure if he has any left, but I only paid 59.99 for each, which to me I don't care if they are wild caught or not for that price considering their size. Either way I got a good deal.

Edit: Oh and we try and keep the water temp between 82 and 84, so we can try and please the plants and the fish both. We don't want to have it too high because of that reason. But we supplement them all with CO2, seachem fertilizers and fluorite mixed in the gravel, as well as proper lighting. The plants are still becoming established, well some of them, so it will take time before we see any great results from them, but they are coming along. Some are starting to grow quite well. Only time will tell with them.

Edited April 6, 2008 by firestorm

[geleen]

Thanks guys for your useful suggestions. And if you just want to criticize me then why not just not respond to my post. I know that fronts are not the best tank mates for discus so that is why we only have them in there for now while they are still small, and will be buying another larger tank for them in about 3-4 months. As for angels, I did not know they were that bad to mix with discus, so thank you for giving me a heads up.

So far they haven't really eaten anything yet, and no they do not look as stressed now as they did at the store. Many discus as well will develop black spots when they are in stress, which is often why you see them that way. We also had a small discus that had the black spots, but they started to go away. We only got these guys this past friday, so of course it will take them a week or 2 to get used to the tank.

Right now in the tank we have 4 discus, 4 german blue rams, 2 bolivian rams, 3 frontosas, 2 blue acaras, 4 angels, 3 kribensis, 1 apistogramma, 1 black ghost knife, and 1 pictus catfish, 4 cherry barbs(we couldn't catch to sell, and hope they get eaten), 4 ottos, 2 siamese algae eaters, and 4 ghost shrimp.

We will be doing 2 25% water changes at least every week, and that being said we leave our water as is and don't mess with pH's and stuff, so since my pH is 7.6 and KH is about 120ppm, both the discus and frontosas will survive fine in these waters. Soon after removing my frontosas I will be starting slowly to use some RO water in their tank, I am still waiting for my system to come in the mail. I feed my fish mostly NLS pellets, sometimes we feed our nutrafin max to get rid of it, and sometimes things like spirulina disks or frozen treats. I may try rubbing the food in garlic if the discus don't eat within 5 or 6 days.

We believe the discus with darker stripes is a blue red maues discus, and the other one a blue manacapuru discus. I really do believe they are wild caught because of all the pictures we have seen of different types of discus. Most domestic discus are the ones with all the fancy colors, since they cross breed until they get pretty colors, just like alot of other fish. They are both in the bottom pic, and all the rest of the pics are just other ones of them. And I do believe the glass was a little streaky because I looked at their eyes and they are both fine. As for the spots on the ones fin, I have already seen that and I am keeping my eye on it. Thanks guys, I am still pretty new at keeping discus, so I am open to any helpful tips. I might be grabbing a couple more wild caught discus from spencer jacks in a month or so, which will probably be my limit. Kevin if you would like to see about going in on buying some from spencer, let me know. And denis had about a few left, but that was on friday, so I am not sure if he has any left, but I only paid 59.99 for each, which to me I don't care if they are wild caught or not for that price considering their size. Either way I got a good deal.

Edit: Oh and we try and keep the water temp between 82 and 84, so we can try and please the plants and the fish both. We don't want to have it too high because of that reason. But we supplement them all with CO2, seachem fertilizers and fluorite mixed in the gravel, as well as proper lighting. The plants are still becoming established, well some of them, so it will take time before we see any great results from them, but they are coming along. Some are starting to grow quite well. Only time will tell with them.

Frozen bloodworms are a hit!

J

[Kevin]

Thanks guys for your useful suggestions. And if you just want to criticize me then why not just not respond to my post.

Do you think that I spent 30 minutes drafting that post to be critical. I was trying to help and I am sorry that you took it the wrong way. I have a few more tips that you may see as criticism - please don't take them that way.

So far they haven't really eaten anything yet, and no they do not look as stressed now as they did at the store.

They don't look stressed, they look great. I agree with Geleen that you should try FBW. Only feed once a day though and try to start introducing other foods quickly. FBW is like crack for discus and they will turn down other foods if they become dependent on them. As a note - healthy fish will eat nearly anything put in front of them. If they are not eating voraciously, then you can still improve their environment in some way.

Many discus as well will develop black spots when they are in stress, which is often why you see them that way.

Black spots only exist in Pidgeon Blood strains. Stress bars show in most other discus. A combination of stress bars, eye color and intensity and behaviour will tell alot about the general health of the discus. These fish look great for just being transferred.

We also had a small discus that had the black spots, but they started to go away. We only got these guys this past friday, so of course it will take them a week or 2 to get used to the tank.

Right now in the tank we have 4 discus, 4 german blue rams, (great tank mates)2 bolivian rams, (great tank mates)

3 frontosas, (you know what I think)

2 blue acaras, 4 angels, 3 kribensis, (love acaras, but all are way to aggessive for discus)

1 apistogramma, (discus willl likely eat him)

1 black ghost knife, (eats discus in the wild, I can't think of a worse tank mate) There was another AA member on that insisted on keeping a ghost knife with his discus 6 months ago - I wonder how he is doing?

and 1 pictus catfish, (I don't know about africans)

4 cherry barbs(we couldn't catch to sell, and hope they get eaten), Or they will nip the discus fins.

4 ottos, (I have not had bad luck with slime sucking ottos off of the sides of discus, others have I think these are a great choice for algae control.)

2 siamese algae eaters, (These are frantic fish that will harrass your discus when they get to 3 inches - that being siad they do help in a planted tank, just watch them carefully)

and 4 ghost shrimp. (these may be your discus' first meal)

So full grown you have ~124 inches of fish in a 90 gallon tank- if your tank is not at capacity now, it certainly will be in the future. Your water change schedule would be better if your tank was at 45 inches.

We will be doing 2 25% water changes at least every week, and that being said we leave our water as is and don't mess with pH's and stuff, so since my pH is 7.6 and KH is about 120ppm, (sounds pretty good.) both the discus and frontosas will survive fine in these waters. Soon after removing my frontosas I will be starting slowly to use some RO water in their tank, (why would you use RO in your tank, when you could do so many other simpler things to make your discus' life better, like getting them their own 55 gallon tank.) I am still waiting for my system to come in the mail. I feed my fish mostly NLS pellets, sometimes we feed our nutrafin max to get rid of it, and sometimes things like spirulina disks or frozen treats. I may try rubbing the food in garlic if the discus don't eat within 5 or 6 days. (Better yet, get your dicus eating blood worms, then soak the pellets in blood worm juice - it really helps your discus get the idea. I really like NLS, but I have had good luck getting finicky discus onto Tetra's Earthworm flakes - they seem to like the taste.)

We believe the discus with darker stripes is a blue red maues discus, and the other one a blue manacapuru discus. I really do believe they are wild caught because of all the pictures we have seen of different types of discus.

I totally agree that these are wild discus and they are absolutely splendid. I really wish you luck with them.

Most domestic discus are the ones with all the fancy colors, since they cross breed until they get pretty colors, just like alot of other fish. They are both in the bottom pic, and all the rest of the pics are just other ones of them. And I do believe the glass was a little streaky because I looked at their eyes and they are both fine. As for the spots on the ones fin, I have already seen that and I am keeping my eye on it. Thanks guys, I am still pretty new at keeping discus, so I am open to any helpful tips. I might be grabbing a couple more wild caught discus from spencer jacks in a month or so, which will probably be my limit. Kevin if you would like to see about going in on buying some from spencer, let me know. And denis had about a few left, but that was on friday, so I am not sure if he has any left, but I only paid 59.99 for each, which to me I don't care if they are wild caught or not for that price considering their size. Either way I got a good deal.

Yes it sould like you got a good deal, but only if you can get them eating and they survive until summer.

Edit: Oh and we try and keep the water temp between 82 and 84, so we can try and please the plants and the fish both. We don't want to have it too high because of that reason.

If you can't get the discus to eat, try cranking up the temperature a little more. I really believe it will help, but it will be hard on your plants. My personal belief is that you can never please everyone and I would only try a planted discus tank once I had healthy discus that are eating the way I want them to.But we supplement them all with CO2, seachem fertilizers and fluorite mixed in the gravel, as well as proper lighting. The plants are still becoming established, well some of them, so it will take time before we see any great results from them, but they are coming along. Some are starting to grow quite well. Only time will tell with them.

Edited April 7, 2008 by Kevin

[firestorm]

Oh no kevin it, wasn't your responses or geleens comments that were criticizing, I found them to be helpful and I am open to hearing things I don't already know. Thanks for your input, alot of it was useful to know. And I fed them bloodworms tonight, usually do every few days for the black ghost knife. The discus loved them, so at least they were eating. And by the way those pictures were taken a few hours after we put them in the tank, so that might be why they looked so stressed. They look much better today and I will try and get more in the next couple of days so you can see the difference in them.

Well when I get that bigger tank I might then move my blue acaras, angels, and black ghost knife out into that one, I guess the catfish also. Then I might try and put my frontosas in my 90 gallon african cichlid tank until I can afford to get a bigger one for them as well. Just spent money on a smaller tank and put the dwarf puffers we once had in the 90 community, now they are in a tank by themselves. The cherry barbs are a pain in the butt to catch, but I will keep my eye on them. As for the apistogramma and kribs, I may leave the apisto, don't know yet, and I will keep the kribs with angels and acaras. Hmm lol I have alot of sorting out to do here, but I am glad for the advice since the discus are my favorites. Don't want anything bad to happen to them. And the siamese algae eaters we just bought today, only about an inch long right now, but they are only in there temporarily until we can get our hair algae under control. The ghost shrimp, if they get eaten, oh well. I will try to soak the pellets in bw juice next time, although they do say garlic works good too usually. Guess if I see my plants being stressed I can always take them out for the time being and place them somewhere else to grow. How many discus can you fit in a 55 gallon? Once I get my tax rebate back I will be able to afford a little more to rearrange things. And thanks alot, I would rather hear from people who have kept discus who actually know what they are doing.

Edited April 7, 2008 by firestorm

[geleen]

Glad they are eating :thumbs: Sounds like you are giving this a lot of thought.

Kevin gave insightful input, a voice of experience.

To add; if, once settled in,you have too much infighting among the discus you may have to get one more :smokey: As you know they do better in a larger group.

In response to your question re. a 55 gallon...

IMO, you can put 5, maybe 6 full grown discus in a 55, with 1-50% and 1-30 % water change a week. With 5 you could add a small shoal of, for instance, cardinals or rummynose or harlequin rasbora's.

This is what works for me.

I usually change water 2 times per week, as above, and once every 2 weeks make an 80 % change, always with aged, preheated and aerated water. I also vacuum the gravel deeply, once a week. Clean the filter once a month.

I recently started using Seachem Purigen. It made a positive difference in their behavior (calmer,) and the water is absolutely clear! I don't know how often I will need to regenerate the stuff, perhaps (hoping) only once a month.

Good luck with them, if I had more tank space, and possibly a divorce :boxed: I would want them.

J

[Fish_Frenzy]

I hope you didn't take offence from my advice as I was just trying to be helpful. We have been keeping Discus for 3 years and have learned alot through trial and error. I was just trying to give you a few short cuts. Kevin is a great resource for advice on Discus as he was the one that sold us our first group of Discus...now we are up to 26!

As for how many Discus you can put in a 55 gallon tank...Geleen is pretty accurate in my opinion. A school of Cardinals looks awesome with Discus. We have a good size school (23) and I find the Discus more relaxed with the dither fish. And plenty of water changes are key to keeping Discus happy and healthy, it really is.

Your fish don't look stressed any more than fish anyone would add to a new tank, a new home. Geez, I have juvies here that have stress bars and have been here for a year. I just moved them to a different tank with new tankmates and they haven't yet established their position in the pecking order yet.

Tammy

[firestorm]

Sorry tammy, I forgot about you, and yes your info was great as well, and I liked your opinions. I am considering buying another 55 for them, or putting all the others in there, but I guess it would be less stress on most of the fish to only move the discus over, not to mention the ease of catching them compared to all the rest lol. I do plan on getting about 1 or 2 more discus in the next month or so, so I might even go for a 65 gallon or something. I did have cardinals in there, but they ended up being smaller than I thought and half were gone by the next morning. I will have to try and get some more then, as I love their colors. Thanks again guys.