Discus

he is a beaut isn't he, Jason?

 

Just moved the first batch out to their own tank in the fishroom. They look tiny now that they are not swimming with their parents. Age is roughly 38days from free-swimming.



In bucket waiting to move. Roughly 30 fish in total.

 

In their new tank

 

One of the strange '' barless' fry.

 

Andrew, just out of curiosity, what size tank do you put them in?

Those little barless guys are damn cool!

 

Howzit Sean

Ive moved them to a standard 3foot tank, but at a lowered water level so its easier for them to hunt the bs down. As soon as I moved them I dumped some bs in and they are going moggy already.

 

'Respect your elders' in the fishroom!!

 

Ok awesome! I'm in the throws of redesigning my discus system, well, potentially redesigning it. My Rio Xingus are getting nice and big, and I'm contemplating building a system easier to maintain and one that would be less strain on the fish come water change time.

Also, I'm seeing a bit of aggression in a couple of the bigger guys, so I fear I may have to split them up some time soon. Even though there are 8 of them.

 

cough cough cough.........come now Sean, how about starting a thread of the Xingus????

 

Hahaha! No. They're the most full of s&^t fish I've ever owned! If I come near the tank they all go dark and hide in the corner. If I feed them, they all go dark and hide in the corner. If I do a water change, they all go dark and hide in the corner... Basically, I can't do anything in front of the tank and they cower away in the corner. But I did sit and watch them today for about 45 minutes and they are absolutely beautiful fish. When they're bigger they will be extremely nice fish.

So that's why I am thinking of redesigning their system, so that it's a little taller and they wont be so scared. Also allowing for better filtration, etc... I would like to build in some "breeding" cubes into the system as well, so I can QT some fish I have my eyes on...

 

Hahaha, ja I hear you. Typical discus sh&t hey??

Ok, perhaps just give us a run down of your tank size, filtration etc etc?

 

Tank size at the moment is 1mx0.5mx0.5m with a 150L sump. I have plenty ceramic rings, eheim filter media, siphorax, etc in there, as well as a whole bunch of floating echinodorus plants helping to keep nitrates under control. The tank seems to be getting small for all of them now. Temp is 29 degrees, ph is 6.2 and all other levels in check.

It's a rearing tank, it's not a keeping/display tank.

Bare in mind when they arrived the biggest were less than 4cm.

 

Ah ok, sounds pretty much like my para-free grow out tank. 1.2m x 0.5m x 0.6m with a 150l sump. Running a trickle filter with 25kg ceramic rings. Same water parameters as your tank and also need to get these guys out to a larger tank. Have 16 fishes in there and things are starting to get frisky.

In the process of nuking my main reception tank and re-doing the plumbing so no chance of parasite issues down the line.

These fishes were also around 4-6cm mark and now at 10months there are some larger than my breeding leopards and snakeskins that are 2.5 years old.

 

Sheesh! I wish these guys would actually just chill out. I'm considering making a cube based system. So main tank would be 800x800x700mm, with sump, and then 2 smaller 500 cubes. All tanks plumbed to each other, but the cubes can be disconnected from the main system if I need to QT anything. I recon that would be a decent size for them, and they might be happy too.

 

I know that everyone says that you should not put your Discus in an area where there is too much activity - but honestly, what's the point of tippy-toeing around the little buggers. I reckon that the fish will adapt AND be happy in an area where there is people moving around and lots of activity. Mine have adapted and now anyone - including the dogs can run past and it does not cause mayhem in the tank. I have music going and TV blaring on - and it does not affect my fish. It's just a matter of conditioning them to all the movement and they will adapt. They actually now come to the front of the glass and watch the dogs running around - and they watch my every movement - just in case I lift the food container .....
I reckon it's F.I.F.O. as far as my fish are concerned and I say don't pamper them too much !!!

 

I think you will have some really stunning babies from this pair. I am not a big fan of "dirty" strains but i think this would be nice. Maybe I must book some in advance.... :hmmmm:

 

@eros111, thank you for joining this discussion and adding your input.

Yes for sure, one can always try and condition your discus to adapt to the surroundings you want them to get used to. But unfortunately one always runs the risk that during this period one or 2 of the fishes may actually just get spooked enough that they always try and hide. Then they don't eat, stress sets in and they go down hill. Flagellates take over and bam, you end up with discus that end up frekking. It is my experience that discus can be quite skittish by nature, and of the more than 80 discus of 10months of age and older that I own in various systems, I don't think off hand that there are any I would say are super chilled with whatever passes their way. Yes my adult fishes are more relaxed, but I still don't take things for granted. Ive learnt the hard way that when things look good with discus, its a tight-rope. But when something goes wrong, things go pear-shaped VERY quickly.

As this is on open forum, I thought I would just add my 2c in this regard, so that anyone wanting to start off keeping discus doesn't have problems from day one.

As a side note, I know both Sean and I are also referring to discus that arrived as 4-5cm juveniles. I cant speak for Sean, but its taken me up till now to have a tank of 16 of my para-free german imports at a stage where they are ALL comfortable enough not to get spooked at the drop of a hat. And these are fishes where some of them are already hitting the 16-18cm mark at 10months old. im only now comfortable enough to move them to my display tank in reception where there will be the traffic flow you refer to and then this will take some getting used to for them.

Quite interestingly, the fry I moved yesterday to their own tank, were this morning ALL hovering at the side of the tank where they could see the older batch of discus in the adjacent tank. I quickly popped a Styrofoam divider between the 2 tanks and immediately the fish started swimming around the whole tank looking for bs. This tank is also purposefully high up in my fishroom to minimise stress due to sudden movements in the fishroom.

Cool.

 

Yip, invariably F.I.F.O. with discus usually means they die.............