how many can go in a 90gallon tank

[tjbrunson]

I new to discus and I wanted to get a few but I trying to figure out how many can go in a 90g I seen two different rule one was 230g for the first and 10 for everyone after so im not sure

[Scales]

The general rule of thumb that I've heard is one discus per ten gallons. I keep eight in my 90 and they seem very comfortable.

[tjbrunson]

and 5 being the 3 mini you can have right

[tjbrunson]

5 bein the mini you can have ?

[du3ce]

I have 8 in my 75

[Rudustin]

Depends on how many water changes you do, how often you feed and what you feed, what kind of filtering system you have, is the tank planted or not, do you have substrate etc.and are these adult discus or babies or juveniles. I have a 125 gallon, bare bottom tank and do fifty percent water changes with aged tap water every other day and I have eight adults and four sub adults. That tank has two 110 Aqua Clear filters. I personally wouldn't add any more to that tank. I have five sub adults which have to be moved to a fifty gallon shortly and five juveniles in a 65 gallon bare bottom with a sump filter that gets 90 percent water changes every other day as well with aged tap water. I hope this helps you in your decision. I am still new and sometimes I don't keep that regimen of water changes if I am out of town working but most of the time that is the water change schedule when I am home which is pretty often. My fish are very healthy and seem to thrive but there are many more experienced Discus keepers in this forum that can answer your question much better than I can. good luck.

[Elliots]

5 is probably the minimum. The Discus will attack each other for dominance. That may stress them out. To spread the stress around you need more fish. I would not go for the minimum as more is better.

[Bud Smith]

You can keep 8 to 10 discus with proper water conditions and tank maintenance. I stress tank maintenance. I have done this with a 75 gal.

[pastry]

tj, also depends on your plan. are you growing little guys out or getting adults? planted or bare bottom? if bare bottom and do daily 50%+ WCs then hell, you could put about 8 sub-adults in there comfortably. if you do 2-3 WCs per week then you could still get away with 8 adults. or you could grow a group of 3"-4" fish (around a dozen to dozen & 1/2) but once around 5.5-6" you'll want to slim the group down to about 8. you'd want to at least do daily WCs on that route.

if you're going planted then you may want to go with nothing less than a group of sub-adults. 7-8 max, but stay on top of WCs and then you can slack off a little when they're adults (I shouldn't say that... but you can). otherwise, 6-7 adults right away in planted.

either way, it all depends on what you're thinking in regards to juvies, sub-adults, adults, and water change routine (yep, there are other things that go into, i.e.-filtration plan, but just keeping it at a high-level thought for now).

[pastry]

oh, last part, "do as I say, not as I do..."... I'm a hypocrite because I have a planted and only do 2-3 WCs a week... and that's why mine won't reach full potential on growth (started with juvies in a 150 planted and biggest ones are only just over 6" while the smaller ones are barely 5").