Discus behaviour

After having a house sitter looking after my fish for a year and then a major house renovation. That saw everything being relocated to a smaller temporary setup while the 2m tank was moved so the painters could get at the wall behind it. My poor fish took a hammering during that time. 5 of my discus did not make it Some of the nicer ones too.

Many thanks to @JCL who very generously lent me a tank for a lot longer than I originally planned.

So all the discus are happily in the big tank and the continuous water change is up and running again. In fact after a 6 week with the only input being food, I got home all the parameters were good with barely detectable nitrates and a 15 minute algae wipe and everything looked perfect.

So after a few days of checking everything out I decided that the tank needed to be scaped and some new additions needed.

So in go 10 Cardinals, 10 Rummynose, a few corys, and 2 pairs of German Rams. After quarantine of course...

The discus behaviour has changed overnight. I know that "dither" fish help calm the discus down but it is amazing to see the change. They now use the whole tank where preciously they hung around the one end. They have also become more vertical, hanging in the upper half of the tank. And spawning behavior is occurring. The one fish has been looking like it will peg for over a year now. Permanently thin and looking malnourished. I decided it was due to bullying as whenever food was distributed it would get harassed and chased away. Now all of a sardine it is one of group again, eating unchallenged.

I did witness one cardinal being scoffed by the discus and another rummy was chased into the glass and died. But all a big happy family now.