Do Discus Ever Fight Each Other?

[CammieTime]

Do Discus fight each other? Do they get territorial and keep the runts away and terrorized? Or are they friendly community fish? How do little young Discus interact with big giant Discus? Does anyone ever have problems with Discus in-fighting?

[pitdogg2]

Discus are cichlids and yes cichlids are territorial and fight. How many discus do you have in the tank? Smaller Discus will be bullied they should not be in the same tank with larger Discus.

[gators111]

Discus will establish a pecking order in the tank, just like African cichlids do. And pitdogg is right, you shouldn't mix different sized individuals. IME, even when you buy a group and grow them out, the Alpha will end up getting the biggest and the low man will end up the smallest. But as with all cichlids, it also depends on how mean your Alpha fish is too. Some can be relentless and harass the low man to death, or can be benevolent and everyone is healthy and happy. Just depends. And then if 2 pair off and spawn, this creates a whole new element of territoriality.

[MendoMan]

I have 14 in a 140 and never witness more than a little bit of chasing. I also have had no problem introducing smaller fish. i know many people can tell horror stories about Discus aggression sure glad thats not the case with mine.

[Jack L]

i have 11 ...wait..12, ..no 11 LOL in my 140 gallon tank
anyway, i have seen plenty of aggression, and the bullies have become the bullied and when pairing like gators111 mentioned, that changes everything up.

lately i've seen some of them hitting the sides of the others enough to put circles on them.

[Neptune]

I have a tiny runt in with 6 much bigger fish..he/she is NOT low man on the totem pole.
my aggression varies from day to day. Some days nice and peaceful the next day all hell breaks loose!

[DISCUS STU]

Discus naturally fight among themselves and establish pecking orders and hierarchies. While they're one of the less aggressive Cichlids they are still capable of great shows of aggression. Usually an order is established and this tends to diminish after new fish have been added. If the tank is a good size observing the idea of enough space per each fish, and has the right number of Discus, at least 6 or more, then the fighting and aggression are dispersed.

Large Discus usually tolerate much smaller fish well while fish of similar size may tend to fight more. Getting the balance right isn't that difficult but I've had to move fish around between tanks at various times though this is rare.

Can you describe the size of your tank(s), fish, their ages and size, etc?

[adrian31@outlook.com]

I have 11 Discus in a 180gal, ranging from 4" to 6". The five biggest dominate the feeding times, and spar among themselves, not troubling the smaller ones for the most part. But a couple of my 4" hold their own and defend one of the cubes of FDBWs all to themselves.

Each feeding I do 4 cubes FDBWs (spread out), and 2 cubes BF (on opposite tank sides) which sinks to the bottom. All my fish feed to the full over about 10 minutes until I start the cleanup.