Discus Fish

Hey All,

Please advise if it would be fine to have 4 large discus and 4 small discus in the same tank. I love these fish and just want to add more. I also put neons in the tank and it looks really awesome, just worried if I have to put small discus, would the large discus give them any trouble....

 

Firstly.... Are the new discus Fully Quarantined? Size differance between them? Size of tank? Who was there first - big ones or younger ones?

There are many pitfalls in introducing new discus to a existing group,pathogen wise as well as behaviourly... you should increase your shoal size though - 4 Discus will end up with one bullying the rest... to great a size differance,and generally they younger guys will be kept from food at a critical time in their developement... Young discus need to be fed much more frequently than adults....

Maybe @Marco or the Prof can chip in here as well....

 

Hi @krishilb

@azurekoi is right about you needing to have quarantine procedure first and foremost for any fish you introduce to your existing population. With Discus this is vital as you can easily end up with cross contamination of bacteria which will lead to a big set of problems.
Your next concern is volume, you must have at least 50liters, preferably 60 to 70 per fish. So if you are going to have 8 fish you need at least 400 liters for them.

Then, to answer your actual question- it will be perfectly alright to keep adult and juvenile Discus together. Juveniles, when kept on their own tend to bicker for position and food, but when kept with adults they tend to be much calmer and 'fall in line' behind the adult fish which tend to sort them out quickly. Due to their automatic dominance in size the juvies accept their lower rank and actually do much better in a set up like this than they would if only juvies are kept together.

Kind regards

Marco.

 

Thanks guys... I will be purchasing the smaller discus fish to go with my larger ones from the very same fish pet shop. The guy DiDi does an excellent job in taking care and ensuring they are all good...

 

lol - Pet Stop has some REALLY nice Discus at the moment....

 

yeah i was there yesterday and saw. I wanna get rid of my angel, bala chinese algae eater n guppies. I just want a discus n neons/cardinals in the tank with my bottom feeder that i currently have which wont go after my discus and try to suck on them